Restoring the Soil - Canadian Foodgrains Bank

Green Manure/Cover Crop Systems7143. Cameroon. An improved fallow using tephrosianear Bamenda, Cameroon.to over one thousand neighboring farms,without the support of any outside institution.26 A very similar system is used inparts of Vietnam by thousands of farmers.EthiopiaS61. Teff/grasspea. Grasspea (Lathyrussativa) is planted in a rotation with teffand other crops. Traditional grasspeavarieties should not be eaten, althoughICARDA (the International Center forAgricultural Research in the Dry Areas) has now developed low-toxin varieties that aresafe for human consumption. Tens of thousands of farmers practice this traditionalsystem.RwandaS62. Other crops/buckwheat. Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is rotated with anumber of other crops throughout much of Rwanda. Tens of thousands of farmers usethis traditional system.UgandaS63. Various crops/common peas. In southwestern Uganda, common peas are grownwith various highland crops to maintain fertility, either in a rotation or as contourhedgerows on steep hillsides. Thousands of farmers use this traditional system.TanzaniaS64. Maize/sunnhemp. Sunnhemp (Crotalaria ochroleuca) is intercropped with maize,both to fertilize the soil and to provide a very good pesticide to control insects duringgrain storage. The sunnhemp is broadcast at a rate of about 30 kg/ha of seed, mixingone part sunnhemp seed with two parts sand to get a fairly even distribution of theseed. The sunnhemp is planted at the same time as the maize. Tens of thousands offarmers use this introduced system. 2726Anagho, Richard, “Green Manure for Improved Fallows in the Northwest Province of Cameroon.” Paper delivered at aFollow-Up Seminar Workshop “Eco-Farming in Africa,” on November 10, 2000.27Kullaya, I. K., et al., “Towards Improving Soil Productivity by Sunnhemp (Crotolaria ochroleuca) in the Highlands ofKilimanjaro in Northern Tanzania,” in Norwegian Journal of Agricultural Sciences, No. 21, pp. 99-106.