This is the tree that will save us in Arewa!
– By Ibraheem Dooba
How?
1. It’s called leucaena (pronounced lucina)
2. It grows fast. This picture was taken this morning. I planted it for a neighbor less than a year ago.
3. So, it produces a ton of biomass
4. It’s not only drought tolerant but also drought resistant. The ones I planted in the farm survived 5 months without rain. Scratch that. They didn’t only survive, but actually thrived.
5. So we can use it as pioneer trees to arrest desertification
6. It increases the weight gain of cattle by 1 kilo every day. Your cow will look like an elephant in one year. It’s actually the secret of Australia’s beef domination in the market.
7. University of Queensland calls it the most sustainable forage plant.
8. It increases milk production by up to 20%.
9. It drops an equivalent of 7 bags of ammonia fertilizer per hectare because it’s a legume.
10. Used in array cropping it increases maize yield without synthetic fertilizer
12. It also amends soil degraded by synthetic fertilizer
13. Used as stakes, it increases yam yield to 13 to 15 tons per hectare
13a. So it helps both the herder and the farmer.
14. That’s why we’re working with Emirs and Ardos to distribute the seeds and seedlings to both farmers and herders.
15. Emirs are very supportive of this. So is the government of PBAT through the office of Vice President Kashim Shettima. Farmer Governor Bago of Niger State is also supporting the project. The DG of the Great Green Wall is visiting us in Minna very soon.
16. We want to do more. We want every farmer and herder to have access to the seeds. 200MillionTrees provides the seeds for free.
17. That’s why we gave the seeds to Islamiyya schools and bought back the seedlings from them.
One of the women we introduced to the tree sold us 1 million naira worth of leucaena seedlings last month.
18. Farmers can plant them in their farms. Herders can plant them in their ruga. Even a small space is enough. Governments should plant them in their forest reserves.
19. Because it’s evergreen, cattle wouldn’t need to move southward during dry spells. That alone will bring an end to farmer-herder clashes and loss of lives and livestock.
20. We at 200MillionTrees offer to plant 500,000 for free for any state that’s interested.
Nelson Mandela said, “they think it’s impossible until it’s done.”
We can do this. We can solve the decades-old problem of farmer-herder clashes, desertification, poor soil and low animal productivity.
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