Irrigation Systems for Fruit Trees in Africa

Hello everybody.

My name is Nora, and I am a new intern at HAF. Over the next 4 months, you can follow my internship journey on the HAF blog.

About Me

Allow me to first introduce myself. I am 29 years old, and I study International Social Work in the master’s program at the University of Applied Science in Erfurt, Germany. The third semester of my program consists of an internship abroad which also encompasses the initial research for my master’s thesis. As I am interested in Arabic language and culture and always wanted to travel to Morocco, working with HAF seemed to be a perfect opportunity to find out more about the country’s ongoing developments and social projects. So, here I am.

I’m not certain about the topic of my thesis yet, but I hope the following months interning with HAF will help to steer me in the right direction. In general, I hope to  find out how to develop and implement sustainable projects that have positive effects on the environment, contribute to poverty alleviation, and improve the living conditions of disadvantaged people. HAF’s work seems highly promising to me, and I’m looking forward to gaining insight into their projects and contributing to their work.

In my first week as an intern, I was entrusted with research and administration tasks. I was ready and very excited to go on my first field visit yesterday. Together with my colleagues, Said and Abduljallil, our driver, Hassan, and Pieter, Chief Tree Planting Officer from Ecosia, I visited several of HAF’s tree planting sites.

Ecosia: An Eco-Friendly Search Engine

You may be familiar with the Ecosia search engine, which is similar to Google but has the incredible advantage that the profit generated by the company is used to plant trees. If you ever wondered how Ecosia finances their tree plantings with your search requests, let me tell you a bit more about their work, as I had the opportunity to talk to Pieter about Ecosia’s projects and ask him all of my questions.

Pieter told me that the number of trees planted by Ecosia all around the world reached 50 million in February 2019. That number has already grown to more than 70 million! In Morocco, Ecosia is funding the planting of 1.2 million trees in partnership with HAF. It was really interesting for me to find out how search requests are translated into trees, mainly based on the revenue Ecosia generates from advertisements. Basically, this works based on the number of clicks per ad on the Ecosia site. But even if you never click on advertisements, you still contribute to the movement because the more active monthly users the website has, the more relevant it becomes to advertisers. On average it takes about 45 search queries to plant a tree. This number varies according to location.

To make sure that all tree plantings are measurable and traceable, sites must be carefully monitored. The methodology of doing so was a primary reason for Pieter’s visit to HAF. The purpose of our field visit was to show Pieter a number of HAF nurseries and the progress of the trees as well as to discuss future collaboration between Ecosia and HAF.

Into the Field

First, we visited a remote village in the Marrakech region. The trip there was amazing. The only possible way to reach the village is a curvy, bumpy dirt and gravel road. Once we arrived, the landscape was simply stunning. As or even more impressive, however, were the people and their trees. Three young men from the local farmers’ association showed us their planting sites, and we were able to converse with some of the proud owners of the land. Even Pieter, who has a deep knowledge about trees, was deeply impressed by the size and the condition of the trees. For example, some of the olive trees planted only 2 years ago are already head-high and have fruit ready to harvest. Abdeljalil, who works on-site with the farmers most of the time, told us that the progress is simply owed to the care and attentiveness offered to the nursery.

In the afternoon, we visited a beautiful garden where saffron is grown. Here, we saw how to practically use space between trees to grow high-value plants and at the same time preserve the good quality of the soil in a natural way.

Later, we visited the school, where HAF with support from Ecosia could enable children and teachers to plant shade-giving trees for the schoolyard.

Conclusions and Remaining Questions

It was fascinating for me to see the different planting sites and gain deeper insight and understanding into the operations of a big company like Ecosia. I still have many questions. For example, I still am interested to know how trees are distributed by HAF and how farmers are selected. Also still on my mind is water supply for farmers--a major issue and consideration in all such projects. I hope to gain a better understanding of these processes throughout my next field trips. These topics are discussed in depth throughout a HAF-Ecosia partnership.

As a High Atlas Foundation (HAF) Project Manager, my main objective is to work with Moroccan communities and HAF nursery caretakers—of more 13 nurseries around the country—to ensure proper care of the trees, from the time we plant a seed until it becomes a seedling.

In partnership with Ecosia, based in Germany, we traveled with two international volunteers from the U.S. (Nesreen) and Germany (Celina) to a small region in the southeast of Morocco during the last tree-planting season to distribute thousands of fruit trees. Before we embarked on our journey, we made sure to prepare the right number of trees that farmers in different villages requested to plant on their land. Members of local associations accompanied the HAF team throughout the tree-planting event.

On January 17th, we arrived at the Gourama commune, with approximately 1,000 inhabitants, in Midelt after a six-hour drive from Fes. Upon our safe arrival, the two volunteers and I agreed to spend as much time as possible with the farmers we would be visiting over the course of the next three days. Specifically, we wanted to learn more about their daily lives as well as their needs. The first day of our time in the regionwas dedicated to distributing more than 7,000 fruit trees to five villages.

In addition to the HAF team’s hard work in preparing for these field visits, the participation and collaboration of many local associations and cooperatives contributed to the overall success as well. For example, it was to our surprise that the first local association was willing to contact all the other local associations to be part of the event. Furthermore, they educated farmers of the benefits of participation and coordinated a schedule with them. The associations were proud of themselves that they were able to organize such a big event in their villages.

To help the farmers save time on transportation, the HAF team distributed the trees to them. Notably, most of the farmers who received trees tried to plant as many as they could on the same day. We were pleased to see women, men, youth, and children from different villages working together to plant these trees. We are confident that participants in all the villages learned that by working as a team, everyone has something to offer to their group and that, together, they can make a change.

Specifically in the villages of El Beiad, Elkasbah, and Tadaout in Gourama, trees were planted far from the nearby river. Community members expressed the need for an additional irrigation system. They also told our team that they were looking to change the existing electric pump to a solar pump, which will lower the expensive electricity bill. Currently, water pumped from the well is mostly used by the community for both drinking and irrigation. The community’s expectations for using a solar pump include:

1. Reducing invoice costs for the community;
2. Saving energy and protecting the planet from pollution;
3. Increasing tree cultivation (i.e., planting more fruit trees) in areas without an irrigation system, which will contribute to environmental development and improvements in farmers’ living conditions;
4. Limiting rural-urban migration and improving women’s livelihoods in rural areas;
5. Reducing the number of youth dropping out of school by improving living conditions; and
6. Ameliorating poor socioeconomic conditions in communities.

This project, implemented with the help of experts and managed by the local association El Karam, has a total budget of approximately $20,000. The community is contributing 50 percent of the cost. If you are interested in supporting these farmers and improving the livelihoods of locals living in these villages, please feel free to contribute any donation amount here. Further, if you would like to learn more about the local communities and the progress of this sustainable project, contact haf@highatlasfoundation.org and we would be happy to share this information with you!