Economie:China in Nigerian agriculture

On June 20, 2012, ten agricultural scientists from the Desert Control Research Institute of Gansu in Northwest China visited Nigeria and Niger to embark on a water conservation programme. Co-sponsored by the United Nations and Chinese government, this programme is an attempt to share best practices in agriculture, following the success of a similar anti-desertification project carried out by agricultural scientists in Gansu.

The group will spend their time in the guinea- and sudan-savannah regions of Kano – an area plagued by erosion, loss of vegetation cover, droughts and desertification following hydro-agricultural activity. Here, they will be tackling the problem of water scarcity in animal husbandry and farming. These issues are less daunting for the scientists who revealed that successful farming techniques in Gansu helped local Chinese farmers overcome their own desertification challenges. Some of the techniques include the stabilisation of sand dunes by using nylon nets and the storage of rainwater in underground tunnels – for the ‘sandy days’ – to prevent the onset of droughts.