When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
food / travel

Congo Farming: Eco-Friendly Fertilizer v. Slash-And-Burn

Moringa leaves, Jun. 3, 2002
Moringa leaves, Jun. 3, 2002
Kouamba Matondo Annette

BRAZZAVILLE — In the area around the Congolese capital of Brazzaville, it's common practice to burn vegetation in fields before planting crops. But this slash-and-burn approach inflicts severe damage to the forests and the soil, not to mention to the health of women, who are the primary farmers in this area.

"The placement of these lands under fallow until they regenerate, forces women to regularly move away from the lands," says Marguerite Homb, president of a non-profit organization called Health and Nature. "They sometimes use too many chemical products at the risk of their own health."

Homb says the women are only doing what they know, but that much of the harm could be avoided with the use of an organic fertilizer called moringa, a plant native to these parts of Africa that has many beneficial properties.

"We've been using it as a fertilizer for our own crops since 2005, and we've never had to change lands," she says. "We cultivate every year on the same parcel. We also make compost with moringa seeds mixed with other substances."

Homb says it could be a "farewell" to pesticides, inappropriate herbicides, polluting chemical fertilizers and slash-and-burn practices in general.

In the district of Madimbu, the training center St. Joseph de Mbouono has also embraced the environmentally friendly moringa. "We use the dead leaves to fertilize the soil," explains center coordinator François Xavier Mifoundou.

Still, some cultivators are hesitant to put the recommendations into practice. "When you ask them to use natural fertilizers, they think it's a waste of time," Mifoundou says. "What they want is to harvest quickly. What matters to them is to quickly make a profit."

Idriss M'Bouka, a geophysics PhD student at Marien Ngouabi University, praises this approach — and encourages women to abandoned slash-and-burn agriculture, which he says deteriorates the soil and ecosystem.

Mifoundou says moringa has other uses too. "To protect crops against insects, we immerse moringa leaves in water for a few days. The liquid we obtain enables us to treat the crops. It's also an incredible feed for chickens."

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Geopolitics

An End To Venezuela Sanctions? The Lula Factor In Biden's Democratization Gamble

The Biden administration's exploration to lift sanctions on Venezuela, hoping to gently push its regime back on the path of democracy, might have taken its cue from Brazilian President Lula's calls to stop demonizing Venezuela.

Photo of a man driving a motorbike past a wall with a mural depicting former President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Venezuela

Driving past a Chavez mural in Caracas, Venezuela

Leopoldo Villar Borda

-OpEd-

BOGOTÁ — Reports last month that U.S. President Joe Biden's apparent decision to unblock billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets, frozen since 2015 as part of the United States' sanctions on the Venezuelan regime, could be the first of many pieces to fall in a domino effect that could help end the decades-long Venezuelan deadlock.

It may move the next piece — the renewal of conversations in Mexico between the Venezuelan government and opposition — before pushing over other obstacles to elections due in 2024 and to Venezuela's return into the community of American states.

I don't think I'm being naïve in anticipating developments that would lead to a new narrative around Venezuela, very different to the one criticized by Brazil's president, Lula da Silva. He told a regional summit in Brasilia in June that there were prejudices about Venezuela — and I dare say he wasn't entirely wrong, based on the things I hear from a Venezuelan friend who lives in Bogotá but travels frequently home.

My friend insists his country's recent history is not quite as depicted in the foreign press. The price of basic goods found in a food market are much the same as those in Bogotá, he says.

He goes to the theater when he visits Caracas, eats in restaurants and strolls in parks and squares. There are new building works, he says. He uses the Caracas metro and insists its trains and stations are clean — showing me pictures on his cellphone to prove it.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest