Hafirs  in Lashaine Village Allow Gardens to Flurish!

Local Tanzanian parter, Global Service Corps has been implementing the food security component of PFD's Jatropha Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative program (JANI) in Tanzania. On a recent trip to  Monduli,  Global Service Corps volunteers, local Tanzanian interns and staff introduced Hafir-making to Lashaine village.  

Hafirs are large trenches dug into the earth, which collect water that can be used during the dry season to ensure food security. On their latest visit the GSC team approached a widow, Seutai Nanga, who lives near the cattle dip where GSC was waiting for farmers to gather for a village meeting. Seutai was very interested in utilizing a Hafir on her farm but did not know if her father-in-law would accept this new technology. Because he was not around and she was hopeful not to lose the opportunity to try something new, she showed us where it would be possible, near her home and close to where she wanted to start a small garden protected from animals.

GSC began to dig a trench 1 - 1.5 meter wide, tapered to be wider at the top, and 4.75 meters long, enough to create a 6,000 litre water tank. The soil was rock hard, making digging much harder than expected, and the team nearly gave up. In fact, some foreign volunteers from an American engineering university group who helped a couple of hours on the first day, left discouraged and did not return the next day.

However, the small GSC-TZ team persevered and by the 2nd day finished digging the trench, lining it with a plastic sheet, digging shallow ditches to channel water into the trench, and creating a settling pit to collect silt and thus reduce sediment from entering the hafir. Before the work was finished, Seutai's father-in-law came by, furious that the trench had been dug without his prior approval.

GSC-TZ apologized, and agreed to go elsewhere, to the protest of Seutai. Her father-in-law slowly relented. By the time we had finished the construction, several villagers had come by and began asking us to assist them to build hafirs at their homes, and indeed Seutai's father-in-law was one of the most adamant that the next hafir should be at his own homestead!

The following week, GSC-TZ's sustainable agriculture trainers and volunteers taught Seutai how to build sack gardens. Two were constructed at her homestead, and she also made a small deep-dug bed garden wherein she planted both indigenous greens, amaranth and edible nightshade, and other vegetables.

Recently GSC-TZ staff visited Seutai, to discover that not only have recent rains filled her hafir, but her family has benefited from having a water source nearby to keep the gardens producing greens.

Her children have consumed the fresh vegetables, and they have even sold some to provide needed income for her family.