Dig In
Learn how to make your own land fertile again, or help your community to get started, with our instructions, videos, posters and more.
Our mission is to inspire and mobilize millions to start regreening, so that large areas of dry land will be transformed into green, fertile areas. Are you ready to be part of the regreen revolution? Dig in and start regreening your land! It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.
We provide a guide to help you choose the right technique for your environment. Our range of materials help get you started. With instruction videos, posters and more, you can see the benefits of regreening, as well as how to apply the different techniques to your land, on your own or together with your community.
Read below for the details of each step!
It starts with understanding your environment, the land and the weather. Is it agricultural land, or are you surrounded by communal grazing land or a natural landscape? The gradient of the land, annual rainfall and the presence of stones and gullies also help determine which is the best technique. It’s good to keep in mind your type of income too.Â
Are you keeping livestock? Then your focus would naturally be on bringing back sustainable grasses. Or are you mainly growing crops and want to know which technique would increase soil fertility and lead to a better harvest?
Once you know what your type of landscape (and land use) is, learn all about what technique best suits you on greener.LAND. See below our most used regreening techniques!
Kisiki Hai (also called Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration – FMNR) is an agroforestry approach to regrow trees and support new, naturally emerging sprouts to thrive and grow. Kisiki Hai involves a process of selecting, pruning and protecting the stumps of cut-down trees. With the right care, these stumps get the chance to grow into real trees again. Applying the Kisiki Hai method has many different benefits, including improved soil fertility for your crops.Â
With the Fanya Juu & Fanya Chini method, you dig contours within your farmland to harvest rainwater. Fanya Chini prevents the rain that falls outside your farm from flowing into or through the farm, protecting the fertile soil from erosion. Fanya Juu prevents the rain that falls within your farm from flowing away, increasing water availability for the crops on your land. In the end it helps you to regreen your own land!Â
Bunds are pits in the grounds in the shape of a half-moon. By digging, the hard top layer of soil is opened up, so that rainwater can penetrate the ground instead of flowing off it.
In many areas, the soil is hard and dry. There is enough rainfall, but it doesn’t fall often and when it does, it rains hard. The hard top layer of the soil prevents rainwater from filtering down. By capturing rain with bunds, the water has more time to enter the soil, which increases water availability. The seeds in the soil get the chance to sprout, and eventually grasses grow back.
Grass seed banks are small parts of communal land that are used for the production of grasses and grass seeds. The grasses that grow on the grass seed banks are protected from grazing livestock and wildlife by a so-called living fence of local shrubs. They form an oasis of green in the barren surroundings. Selling the grasses and the grass seeds harvested from the grass seed banks generates income.
As well as digging bunds and contours to capture rainwater, bringing back trees with Kisiki Hai, and growing grasses in the grass seed banks, there are many other techniques for regreening degraded areas. See them all on Greener.LAND!
You can learn more about each regreening technique through the links above. Our team is working hard to provide more materials to give you step-by-step guides on how to regreen. Take advantage of everything we’ve learned over ten years of regreening and ‘Learn by Doing’.
Don’t forget to share your experiences (successes as well as challenges) with your neighbours and communities to learn from each other and regreen more together. Or share your regreening story on social media. Dig in!
