Irrigation Systems for Fruit Trees in Africa

The High Atlas Foundation’s Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) team met the members of the Adfal Association in a very remote mountain area. During the trip, the team had to unexpectedly leave the car and walk for 1.5 hours to Timichi village, which sits at an altitude of 1,920 meters, because the dirt road was closed due to the construction of a new and long-anticipated paved road.

Typically, the team facilitates sessions to assist host organizations (HOs) in their prioritization of needs. In the case of Adfal, the HO knew exactly what the community needed: to bring water from one riverbank to the other. At the time of the visit, they had constructed a water stream that runs through the riverbed to irrigate the fields on the opposite riverbank. However, a major issue that remains is that when the river floods, large boulders bury the water stream. It takes the local community three months to remove the huge rocks and dig out the water stream. During this time, the fields are not irrigated, and crops are lost.

To address this ongoing problem, the F2F team committed to finding and designing a solution for the community. F2F Volunteers Mustapha from Morocco and Shaymae from the U.S. met twice before Mustapha visited the Timichi village. In spending time in the village, Mustapha was able to design a suspended aqueduct that will transport the water from one riverbank to the other, even during the flooding season.

Mustapha and Shaymae considered the weight of the full water tubes, the slope to reduce erosion when water reaches the other riverbank, and the strength of the cables that will carry the water tubes. They explained the details and shared the design with the HO, though funding for the project was not secured at the time.

However, just weeks after the assignment was completed, members from the community mobilized, combining their human and financial resources to build the aqueduct. They took the lead to raise funds, and they worked hand-in-hand to build the large pillars to carry the water tubes and install the equipment. When our team spoke to the president of Adfal afterward, he exclaimed: “Now is definitely better than before!” The local people feel confident that their fields will not be deprived of water again. Additionally, the HAF-F2F team is following up with the women of Timichi following a four-day Imagine empowerment workshop, as they are dedicated to their food security goals. This is one of many inspiring examples of how F2F is contributing to Morocco’s sustainable development.

Environmental Peacebuilding and the High Atlas Foundation partnered this past Tuesday, September 14th to present a talk featuring HAF’s president, Yossef Ben-Meir, as the main panelist. Environmental peacebuilding refers to the process by which conflict prevention and community resilience are aided by the management of natural resources. The organization presented a series of talks about environmental peacebuilding and transitional justice in various African regions, culminating with the Northern African perspective. Dr. Ben-Meir represented the region by discussing and answering questions from moderator Munini Mutuku regarding the connection between this goal and the work of the High Atlas Foundation. 

Ben-Meir’s opening remarks touched upon the gravity of individual empowerment within the context of transitional justice. Community involvement is inherent when considering the productive and beneficial management of natural resources. In order to build peace between nations, there must first be peace between the people; this base cannot be achieved between individuals who are not cognizant of their needs and secure in themselves. The High Atlas Foundation coordinates and leads workshops designed specifically to develop the necessary skills for leading projects from a place of self-knowledge and trust. As Ben-Meir emphasized, participatory development and the positive change it brings about is not possible without prior introspection about what is really needed. He noted that in the beginning of the organization's work, individuals in community meetings would vote against measures they had desired due to unrecognized, internalized connections to harmful structures, including traditional patriarchal conventions.

After empowerment, true change can come to fruition. Dr. Ben-Meir noted that the projects most commonly arising from community-led initiatives involve a need to engage differently with agriculture; around 75% of rural individuals in Morocco currently gain 80% of their revenue from this sector. Due to Morocco’s dependence on traditional subsistence farming, 70% of current agricultural land produces only 10-15% of agricultural revenue. Morocco has an incredible biodiversity of crops that are currently globally profitable. With a deep knowledge of economics and the cooperation of each community, HAF is able to take steps to simultaneously retain and gain value at each step of the production process. Several of the steps in which value is increased are instrumental in the efforts of organizations, including governmental ones, that seek to maintain peaceful relationships within and between nations. The community-led initiatives pave the way to meaningful partnerships between citizens and government, in effect diffusing the responsibility and power present in the work of sustainable development at home and abroad. Agricultural efforts can become a measure of public diplomacy. 

When questioned about traditional forms of conflict resolution within the villages where HAF works, Ben-Meir shared a story about neighboring villages who had a disputed border. The question was traditionally settled by a daily practice wherein a representative of each community walked after morning prayer until they met, where each day the border would then be drawn. The knowledge of elders passed through generations is thus an important focus of peacebuilding efforts; preserving and sharing their stories can help youth understand not only why things are the way they are, but also how best to move forward. The stories captured bring lived human experience back into history, and create a strong basis for stable relationships and understanding amongst communities. 

A more resilient peace is achievable when all members of society are given equal chance to contribute to institution building. By placing traditionally marginalized groups like women at the helm of decision-making efforts and offering them ownership in aspects of the tree-planting process, HAF plants the seeds for participatory peacebuilding to flourish in an egalitarian context. Ben-Meir referenced the emphasis placed in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights on the concepts of individual and group. Planting a single endemic cherry tree, which may seem a simple act, actually represents the synthesis of countless groundbreaking and productive collaborations and individual introspections. As Ben-Meir stated best in his concluding remarks, comprehension of this process entails a radical transformation from viewing a single sapling as solely that, to the very real human process behind it. The HAF team’s work capitalizes on this effort's potential for meaningful peacebuilding in the Moroccan, Northern African, and global contexts.