Cheesehead Chatter

In this episode of Cheesehead Chatter, Rebecca discusses an impressive agricultural achievement in the Sahara Desert. With the help of the UN World Food Program and local people, the desert land is being reclaimed for farming using ancient techniques. They create half-moon ditches to retain water and plant native species like millet. This has restored a thriving ecosystem and provided long-term benefits for the people. Rebecca wonders if a similar approach could benefit farming in Wisconsin and plans to explore this topic in the next episode. Hello, welcome. My name is Rebecca and this is Cheesehead Chatter. Today on March 22nd, 2024, we are enjoying a beautiful day here in central Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, agriculture is a huge part of our communities, our families, and even our history. So I thought it'd be very fitting to talk about some of the agricultural achievements seen across the world. One of the most impressive agricultural achievements that I recently just learned about is what they've been able to accomplish in the Sahara Desert in northern Africa. Now just that statement alone would impress or confuse most people. I mean, both those words, agriculture and desert, exist in the same sentence. Through the extraordinary efforts of the UN World Food Program, also known as WFP, and the remarkable help from the local people, they have actually begun to reclaim the desert land as proper functioning farming land. Now we learned a lot about how and why this is all taking place by Andrew Millicent's YouTube video, How the UN is Holding Back the Sahara Desert. From his own personal website, andrewmillicent.com, it states, Andrew is a senior instructor in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University, where he founded OSU Permaculture Design. Now I did have to look this up myself to find out what permaculture is. And from the Permaculture Research Institute website, I learned it's basically a way of working with nature than against it to create the desired outcome. For instance, a permaculture farm would have a diverse selection of plants and produce that is strategically planted in a way that works with the land. Essentially trying to get the most bang for your buck, while doing the least amount of damage to the native ecosystem, and if anything, helping it. From Millicent's website, we know that he's dedicated his entire life to this and has traveled with WFP to aid and document the wonderful work that they're doing, which makes him a very reputable source. Through his video, he explains how the Sahara Desert has been slowly creeping down south over the past 100 years. And for more than obvious reasons, we need to try and reverse that. Now there is the Senegal River that runs through the entirety of the upper part of Africa, which separates the Sahara from the Sahel, which is where they currently do most if not all of their farming. If the desert is allowed to continue to expand south, the people will lose even more of their farmland, which means they lose their jobs, their homes, their way of life, and will be forced to take up residency in an already overpopulated city of Dakar, which currently clocks in at around 4 million people. How are they successfully restoring the terrain and bringing back wealth and valuable land to the people? They've used ancient farming techniques that are native to the area that were unfortunately lost over time. What they've been doing is creating a series and patterns of half-moon ditches that are 13 feet in diameter. In the half-moon, there is a slope that goes downward starting from the top of the curved side so that when it rains, the water is retained in the trench at the other end. Now I implore you to go watch the video as a visual to give you a far better description than what I'm currently describing. Through the work of 150 people, they've been able to create 7,500 half-moon planting plots so far. They've also been planting a lot of native species like millet, which creates further biomass by bringing in birds and other animals, while also planting produce in a series of trenches that have been dug throughout the biomass plots for the people to farm. This has re-established a thriving ecosystem that the people will be able to benefit from for generations. I find it so ingenious that they've been able to accomplish so much using techniques that were indigenous to the land in the first place. It makes me question how we currently approach farming in Wisconsin. Would we benefit more by putting aside these large farms that contain only one type of produce and instead inaugurating a similar system? What would the overall benefits be and what would be the drawbacks? How would it change the land in our community? All questions that will be addressed in our next episode of Cheesehead Chatter. I'm Rebecca. Watch out for deer and tell your folks, I says hi. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Cheesehead Chatter. Today's episode was brought to you by Meet Undies, feel-good underwear for women and men. Get your comfort on at meetundies.com. Join us next week as we explore how permaculture could benefit or hinder Wisconsin farming.