Nioumakélé Small Producers Support Project (APPN)

This project was a response to a pressing need for environmental protection and rehabilitation of the agricultural potential of the Nioumakélé region on Nzwani Island, the most densely populated region in the archipelago and one of the poorest.

The activities undertaken by the project, especially introduction of the technique of planting live fences around plots, which incorporates livestock farming on intensive development sites and groups together several farmers and their plots, crop diversification, the use of improved plant varieties and the establishment of a local milk processing plant, all continue to this day, ten years after the project closed, testifying to local communities’ assumption of responsibility for these activities.

The environmental impact of the project was also spectacular: land rehabilitation activities and dissemination of the technique of planting live fences around plots have totally transformed the Nioumakélé countryside, transforming hundreds of hectares of padza (virtually sterile land) into arable land.

The National Programme for Sustainable Human Development, now being formulated in the Comoros, is taking the Nioumakélé experience on board with a view to adapting it and extending it to other regions in the archipelago.

Source: IFAD