I don't know much about farming. How have the farmers been planting sorghum? They just plant them without ploughing? What is the difference in yield? How about talking to the farmers who do plough the land and asking why they do so.

I find it amazing that it took 3 years to diagnose the problem!

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They currently through the sorghum without ploughing. Germinability is meant to double if the land is ploughed... but only if there is enough rain. So currently, only the farmers who have draught animals plough the land.

And yeah, three years is a rather long time, isn't it?

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Start small with a camel bank? Lending animals for one growing season, then either give original camel bank and raise the young or give the young back when it's old enough to survive on it own, so that it is lent out to someone else in the future. Kinda works with buffalo banks, though a major problem is who takes care of the new animals when given back.

I've heard of much worse oversights.

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Good to know that you have have heard of worse oversights. For me, I'm still thinking: "We forgot to ask if they have draught animals!?!?!?"

Camel bank is certainly a good idea. Only problem is that I doubt that any of our current donors (namely ECHO) would fund it. It's too 'development' rather than emergency for them. But the problems here are chronic as well as acute. Might have to run it past the livestock specialist nonetheless and see if he has any opinions.

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Putting on my permaculture thinking cap for a minute...

What are the soil conditions like? Plowing can destroy the O horizon pretty quickly, which will reduce the long-term viability of the land. Depending on how marginal this is in the first place, this could be an issue.

How windy is it - are hedgerows used/an option to reduce aeolian erosion? These can be coppiced as a source for firewood and other useful small wood products.

What are the field sizes? Are cover crops used, or are they too difficult to deal with sans plough? Any mulching or direct-bury composting, whether vegetative or erm, nightsoil?

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It is very windy, in much of the area. Windy and dry. In fact, I had thought that perhaps one of the reasons people don't plough is to reduce the soil loss through wind erosion.

To an Australian's eyes, the soils don't look too bad. It's nice reasonably deep loam in most areas. To my French colleagues, the soil looks pretty bad.

Shrubs are already commonly grown through as hedgerows, and also within the fields themselves. No mulching as such, but the practice is to leave the sorghum plants (I was going to stay stubble, but it's too big to be stubble) there after harvest, and animals are allowed to roam to eat it.

Each household has typically 1-2 hectares, though field sizes can be quite large. What cover dcrops do you mean?

The existing practice completely makes sense. To be frank, it's just that cropping is extremely marginal there anyway.

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Cover crops would vary locally. I'm comparing to what I know of agriculture in the northern Kalahari.

What are the irrigation practices? Reading some Texas extension lit, sorghum needs a fair amount at early stages. If it's already drought stressed...

That's quite a pickle.

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There's no irrigation, as these are the plains and not the riverine area. And yeah, sorghum and millet are pretty much the most drought-hardy crops and trust me, they are struggling.

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Um...leave the farmers alone?

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Hahahaha. That's what I have pretty much decided on now. We are going to be focusing on livestock instead.

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Hey, I clearly have no idea what I'm talking about ... but I was just reading about dal - in particular toor dal, which I love to cook rasam with (south indian soup). Anyway, it says here that it is highly drought resistant and can be grown on marginal land in combination with sorghum. Apparently it is helpful as a nitrogen fixer because it is a legume. It's also known as pigeon pea. Mostly it is grown in India but it is known to be grown in West Africa. (And largely fed to animals, it would seem, so there might be some stigma about eating it in Africa, I don't know.)

But would this at all be helpful as a companion crop for your region in Somalia?

I fully expect my silly idea to be shot down promptly, as have no qualifications in the area of agriculture (though I did date a horticulture student once). And I know Wikipedia is not necessarily a credible information source ...

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No, not a bad suggestion at all. Currently, the sorghum is grown along with cowpeas (also nitrogen fixers), that do reasonably okay, but not spectacularly well. But I will find out about pigeon peas. Cowpeas are largely fed to animals too... Don't know why.

And sounds like the horticulture student you once dated must have imparted some knowledge to you... :)

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Hey, forgot to add my name on the previous post. It's Angry A here.

Anyway. How about going to someone like Shell Foundation (or SABMiller) and see if you can get some funding and training to set up a Camel Coop? Someone donates the camels (SAB or Shell or USAID or ANYONE!). Number of farmers pool together into coop (a few places that can help with this - Technoserve). Slowly make it sustainable by supporting for first few years to show benefits of system. Farmers take over with one person or group maintaining camels to go around and plough farmers land?

Old Ubuntu principle. So it might work.

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Indeed, it might work. We are starting off doing a livestock study in August, and will be assessing possibilities such as this. "Re-stocking" of animals is usually a very sensitive issue and leads to much conflict within communities within Somalia. So the question is how we can do this without leading to a shoot out.

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Actually, cowpeas are used in Western Kenya, the leaves are highly nutritious, (Vit. A, C), and the "peas" are also eaten. The leaves, are very edible, depending on the variety. Go ask any Mluhya in Nairobi about "lihuuvee" (phonetic spelling), and they will give you the low down. The leaves are much better tasting than sukuma wiki.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/cowpea.html Here is a link pointing to the high protein quality of the cowpeas.

I know you mean well, but your organization seems to be re-inventing the wheel. Your questions, have been answered before ( as in 20-30 yrs ago) but it seems the organization does not have the capacity to grow it's knowledge.
http://www.hridir.org/countries/kenya/PROVCOUN/kenya_agricultural_research_institute_kari/kari_headquarters/index.htm.

Also,
http://www.iita.org/cms/details/cowpea_project_details.aspx?zoneid=63&articleid=269

Might contact the organization, www.iita.org, and see if they can send point you in the right direction.

I would also suggest checking out University of Illinois, Purdue, Michigan State, Kansas State, Cornell and see if you can find a professor who is working in drought farming, and you might find someone who wants to do a thesis, and has some money to work with you collaboratively. Wish you luck.

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Thanks for the tips. NGOs like reinventing the wheel. It's employment for the privileged middle class... :)

And I doubt that any university ethics committee would let anyone go to South Central Somalia. Though if you know of one, please email me on vasco_pyjama at livejournal.com!

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