ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how Moatani women used social innovation to break tradition with their innovative composting to better their well-being. It analyzes socio-economic and other costs and benefits of the various soil improvement methods used in the SCI-SLM sites and how exchange visits between farmers impact upon farmers, probably more than a series of workshops and visits of extension agents. The chapter also reviews the revealed disadvantages and benefits of burning and non-burning of forests and crop residues on farms as seen in the SCI-SLM sites. It discusses the added value of SCI-SLM activities to the community innovations. In 1999 one of the women in Moatani visited a neighbouring village, Boamasa, and saw a composting method that had been introduced to a women's group in that community by Zasilari Ecological Farms Project (ZEFP), a non-governmental organisation. The SCI-SLM project started an inventory of the Zorborgu community forest to document the vegetation.
