FMNR the sure way to greening Ghana at a low cost yet high results

Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) is one of the surest ways of regreening Ghana, especially the five northern Savannah Regions of the country.

According to the experts, FMNR is a simple and low-cost land restoration technique enabling poor subsistence farmers to quickly improve their crop yields and incomes.

It involves encouraging farmers to regenerate and manage trees and shrubs on their farms and communal grazing lands from felled tree stumps, sprouting root systems or seeds on the ground. This farmer-led revegetation approach is both an effective climate mitigation and adaptation intervention, hence a climate-smart agricultural technology.

The Executive Director of Forum for Natural Regeneration (FONAR), Sumaila S. Saaka in an interview with this reporter at Yameriga in Talensi District of the Upper East Region, said FMNR addresses multiple environmental problems simultaneously. He said FMNR has been used to restore degraded lands, reverse soil erosion, improve soil fertility, reduce biodiversity loss, increase crop yields and fuelwood access in 57 communities in the Talensi District where the technique was implemented from 2009 to 2019.

Mr. Saaka explained that FMNR is both an effective climate change mitigation and adaptation technique, hence has been widely adopted as a climate smart agriculture (CSA) technology in some African countries like Malawi, Kenya, Senegal and Uganda. “FMNR is also effective in restoring degraded micro watersheds to quickly increase soil moisture and to recharge groundwater sources for farming communities by strengthening rural water supply and resilience to drought,” he added.

The FONAR Executive Director said about 13 years ago the Yameriga Hills in the Talensi District were bare and lifeless until World Vision Ghana (WVG) and its partners introduced FMNR in the area in 2009. He added that it was refreshing to return to the area after a decade to see an unbelievable reforestation, which could not have been achieved through tree planting, urging the government to embrace FMNR in its agroforestry policies.

Secretary of the Yameriga FMNR Lead Farmers Group, Samuel Bantang thanked WVG and its partners for working with the community people to put the Yameriga and Talensi FMNR success story on the world map. He stressed that the people used to cut down trees indiscriminately but they now understand the importance of tree restoration for their own good when they were introduced to FMNR in 2009.

Mr. Bantang further explained that annual bushfires were quite common in Yameriga before World Vision led by Tony Rinaudo came to introduce FMNR in 2009. However, after listening to the World Vision Team who brought the FMNR idea, “we were convinced of the need to embrace it to regenerate our community lands and to improve our livelihoods."

FONAR is currently implementing a two-year school kids FMNR eco-clubs in 15 primary schools in the Talensi District with funding from Awaken Trees Foundation of Austria.