ABSTRACT

A new approach: low cost and replicable techniques A major objective of the IFAD-funded SWC project, by contrast, has been to introduce simple, low-cost techniques, which could easily be mastered by farmers. The project did not have earth-moving equipment or lorries, but occasionally hired them. Its staff was limited to the project director, an agronomist, to a deputy director, a specialist in soil and water conservation, and to ten extension agents. The main targets of the project were to construct contour stone bunds on 2300ha in four years and to develop 320ha with half moons (demi-lunes). In the first year of the project, it carried out activities similar to all other SWC projects which had intervened in this region. It hired a bulldozer for scarifying the land and constructed earth bunds ((osses-ados) which were partially carpeted with stones to stabilize the soil, while some contour stone bunds were also constructed. Food-for-work was used to remunerate the farmers.