Aggie

With a beautiful smile and an infectious spirit, Aggie is one of the most popular fws employees.

Aggie, Simon (Askari) and fellow housekeeper Maswai

Aggie is a 24-year-old single mother to 5-year-old Nelson (you can probably work out who he's named after). Nellie attends the Kesho Leo chekechea, where all fws employees' children receive free pre-primary education.

Like anywhere, being a single mama is tough, but in Sinoni it's particularly hard. Re-marriage prospects are pretty much zero and employment opportunities not much better. And being in Tanzania, there's no welfare system; other than the generosity of neighbours. Most single mothers have little choice but to go back to their family home, or even worse, return to their loveless and/or abusive marriage. But not Aggie.

Unlike any of the many other single women I've met here, Aggie had the courage to leave her husband on her own free will. It is a testiment to her inner strength. While she applied to be a House Mama at Kesho Leo, fws thought that with her excellent English she wasn't as needy as some of the other mamas. Instead, fws offered her the job of cooking lunches for the volunteers during the week (the volunteers chip in a bit every week to pay for it). I think the volunteers at the time just wanted to have Aggie around as much as possible! - she has a wonderful sense of humour and a laugh that will warm your heart.

A few months ago, Sarah decided that Aggie's English was underutilised at the Vollage and suggested that she help teach the House Mamas' weekly English class. She quickly jumped at the opportunity, proving herself more than capable. Since then, we've gradually given her more and more responsibility. Next came teaching the weekly community adult English classes, where anyone from the area is welcome to participate for free. Now she helps out with after school tuition and translation wherever required as well. And she's taken to it with the natural ability and inner strength she's always had.

Recently, fws was able to formalise her new role with a small pay increase and a better title. She still works one morning a week in the Volunteer Village - we weren't going to give her up that easily! - but her afternoons are now full of educational responsibilities. Now she wants to finish her schooling, having only been able to complete Level 7 as a girl. We hope to support her to do so down the track.

And with the increased wage, Aggie has been been able to secure a small loan to finish building the small, two room house she has been saving up for for ages (she currently rents one tiny room in someone else's house). Works are in progress and she hopes to move in by 2011.

Aggie and Nelson at their half-finished house

Aggie's sister was recently dumped by her husband (we suspect for another woman), leaving behind a handful of clothes and two children under the age of 6. That's it. No money, no job and no place to live. She doesn't really have anywhere to go ... until Aggie's house is finished.

The biochar revolution in tropical soil fertility management

by Don Lotter, Ph.D.

Tropical soils are generally more dependent on organic matter for fertility than temperate region soils, plus many, if not most, tropical agricultural soils are low in organic matter. Soils in many parts of the tropics, including Africa, are geologically old, weathered, leached, and are made up of what are known as secondary clays. These clays, which are often reddish from iron oxides, unlike the geologically young, glaciation-derived soils in North America and Europe, generally have a low nutrient holding capacity. Decomposing organic matter, as well as post-decomposition humic substances, provide a critical source of nutrient-holding surfaces, among other benefits.

Warm-wet tropical climates make for high decomposition rates, further exacerbating the soil organic matter deficiency problem. Some countries such as Brazil have developed effective small-holder mulching practices that reduce soil disturbance and keep soil temperatures low, retaining much needed organic matter levels.

The deficit of organic matter in African agriculture can be resolved by intensifying crop production – especially by improving and tightening up crop rotations and polyculture combinations that include legumes and grasses, and by reducing soil disturbance by moving to minimum- and zero-tillage. The former increases the source and the latter reduces the sink for organic matter.

Biochar. There’s a new kid on the organic-matter-and-tropical-soil-fertility block, and he’s big and is going to be a force to contend with – biochar. Biochar is charcoal – pyrolized biomass – mostly pure carbon chains produced by heating (fire temperature) plant biomass in the absence of oxygen, which vaporizes everything except carbon chains and some tar. The biochar as soil amendment phenomenon was in recent years discovered in ancient soils of the Amazon that were biochar-amended and which remain some of the most fertile soils in the region as a result.

Left: Charcoal dust being applied to garden beds.
Right: We obtain charcoal dust that is currently a by-product of the local charcoal market points. At right can be seen a few pieces of charcoal.

Biochar is causing a small revolution in tropical soil fertility management. Its surfaces hold nutrients for plant roots to access, it is microbe-friendly, and it doesn’t decompose or leach away. Numerous field trials have shown higher crop yields, sometimes double, in biochar-amended soils.

Currently in Africa biochar as a soil amendment is a new concept, and knowledge of it hasn’t reached more than a tiny fraction of farmers and agricultural development workers. I am currently able to buy charcoal dust – a waste product – very cheaply from charcoal processing areas in the city of Arusha. These are places where bush-dwelling producers, mostly Maasai women walking with heavily-laden donkeys, bring charcoal. I don’t expect the low prices to last a year as agriculturists learn the value of charcoal dust. Charcoal production is unsustainable in much of Africa where forests are being cut for the wood, but dry savannah areas, such as those surrounding Arusha, can support production when shrubs and trees that can regrow are used as the wood source.

Biochar-producing stoves that burn pellets that are waste-derived or sustainably produced are being introduced in Africa. These stoves have separate chambers for pyrolizing some of the pellets and producing biochar for soils. Pioneering efforts are being made by a few NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to quantify the amount of this stove-derived biochar going into soils, a form of long-term carbon sequestration, and to tap into global carbon-offset market funds to pay the stove users. This may become a significant source of income for people in Africa.