


Keith Swenson
Mar 18, 2022
Ghana
Categories:
Food, Agriculture, Sustainability, Africa
When Kofi Boa, youngest of four children, was 12 years old, his widowed mother returned home at 10:00 PM with grave news. Her cacao farm, the family's only source of income, was destroyed by fire; farmers used fire to prepare land for farming, sometimes with disastrous results. Young Kofi Boa set about looking for better ways. He learned about the "proka" system from older generation farmers in the village, "allow whatever is on the soil to rot and come back."
Heeding the village elders' wisdom and exercising his curiosity and persistence, Boa sought scientific education. A measure of good fortune led to his decision to travel halfway around the world to the University of Nebraska (USA) to study agronomy with a research focus on "no-till" farming. After earning a master's degree, he returned home to try his new ideas on a few acres of land. For Boa, "no-till" agriculture was the epitome of low-tech farming, a machete in one hand and a hand full of seeds in the other. "Tilling" was slitting a shallow cut in the unturned soil, dropping in seed, and stepping on the spot on the way to the next hole, back-breaking labor but effective. Leaves and other organic debris were left where they landed, a messy-looking but practical means of retaining moisture and enriching the soil.
Boa's and his neighbors' success are joyously captured in the video, "We Are Growing!" Each enthusiastic shout-out expresses gratitude for community success and individual achievement, such as growing out of poverty, gaining education, and achieving good health. And the video shots of lush vegetation, soil enrichment, conservation farming, and agricultural regeneration highlight a simple and effective way to increase carbon sequestration, a small step towards reversing climate change.
Boa founded the Centre for No-Till Agriculture in Ghana. The changes in agricultural practices conserve water, increase yields, sustain the arable land and improve weed and pest management. This, in turn, reduces the amount of labor needed to farm the same acreage, improves food security and frees up more time for education and other business pursuits, thereby increasing individual wealth and well-being.
I was born in 1936 and raised on four farms in north central Kansas. I loved the land, livestock,, and living in sync with the environment. My life took me away from the farm, but my heart still yearns for it. The old saying, "You can take the boy off the farm but not the farm out of the boy," aptly describes me. My curiosity about agriculture and people engaged in it has never waned.
David R. Montgomery, a University of Washington professor of geomorphology, wrote a book, "Growing a Revolution-Bringing Soil Back to Life." The book contains a series of success stories about agricultural land regeneration globally, from his backyard garden to a tiny village on the African continent, Kofi Boa's home. One chapter of the book, "Developing Solutions," is a fascinating story about Boa, now best known as "Mr. Mulch, and the community he serves as a farmer-mentor to so many.
Rattan Lal wrote the introduction to the chapter "Developing Solutions." "When people are so poverty-stricken they pass on their suffering to the land." Lal is a native of Punjab, India, and a world-renowned soil scientist at The Ohio State University. His knowledge and teaching about regeneration through carbon sequestration are extensive.
This review may appear to be a bit complicated in that it presents two different sources of information. The first, "We Are Growing," a web video, may encourage you to take the next step and borrow or purchase Professor Montgomery's book, "Growing a Revolution ." It presents a roadmap that millions of people worldwide could use in their communities or individual properties.
Boa's personal story and that of his No-Till Center educational center are compelling. Boa's approach has changed the lives of so many people in his immediate community. But there is a much larger story. People are replicating his successful approach is being elsewhere in Ghana and across the African continent. Moreover, the lessons learned in equatorial Africa add to farmers' knowledge coping with global warming.
And, not to overlooked is perhaps one of the most important lessons being learned and implemented in Kofi Boa's world. The very root of his farming success story is that carbon can be sequestered readily in the soil by changing farming practices. Sometimes it is called conservation farming, regenerative agriculture, no-till farming, or cover cropping. Scaling up these practices worldwide could be a powerful and effective means of confronting and eventually reversing climate change.
To learn more about Kofi Boa and the Centre for No-Till Agriculture in Ghana, please visit the link listed in the source below.
Enter "Growing A Revolution " by David R. Montgomery; 2017 into your web search engine for more information.
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