More than 30 percent of forests have been cleared worldwide, and another 20 percent degraded, largely to make room for raising livestock and growing crops. The present reality, where fields are often cleared of trees to raise livestock or plant row after row of single crops, called monocultures, is running out of room.Ībout half of all habitable land on Earth is devoted to growing food. Ochoo’s tree-filled farm represents what many scientists hope will be farming’s future. Papaya trees help keep moisture in the soil in drier times, benefiting the crops he grows between the trees. “Whether during dry spell or rainy season, my land is not bare,” he says, “there’s something that can sustain the family.” Maxwell Ochoo eats a juicy papaya from his farm in Kenya. Today, nearly everything Ochoo’s family eats comes from the farm, with plenty left over to sell at market. He now spends less on fish food, and the tilapia grow much faster than his neighbors’ fish, he says. He also discovered that he could grind up the fernlike leaves as a dietary supplement for the tilapia he grows in a small pond. A few times a week in the growing season, Ochoo takes papayas, some as big as his head, to market, bringing home the equivalent of about $25 each time.Īnd the fallen leaves of the new Calliandra trees provide fodder for Ochoo’s five cows. The trees provide shade and shelter to the crops, and their deeper root systems help the soil retain moisture. On his own farm, Ochoo now practices alley cropping, in which he plants millet, onions, sweet potatoes and cassava between rows of fruit and other trees.
With the help of nonprofit groups, the community planted hundreds of trees, turning some of the barren hillsides green. In 2018, Ochoo and some neighbors decided to plant trees on public lands and small farms.
Unshielded from the sun, the soil baked, he says. Ochoo blamed the region’s loss of tree cover for the long dry spells that had become more common. The first step in using trees to slow climate change: Protect the trees we have.Why planting tons of trees isn’t enough to solve climate change.There’s no doubt that trees make life better in many respects, but there are right ways and plenty of wrong ways to protect and grow the forests. Lately, society has been putting a lot of pressure on trees to get us out of the climate change emergency we’re in.
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