SUBSCRIBE NOW

SIGHT

Be informed. Be challenged. Be inspired.

TURNING DESERTS INTO FARMLAND: HOW AN AUSTRALIAN AGRONOMIST HAS EMPLOYED AN ANCIENT FARMING PRACTICE TO CHANGE THE LIVES OF MILLIONS

Tony Rinaudo1

DAVID ADAMS speaks to World Vision’s Tony Rinaudo, named last week as one of the winners of this year’s “alternative Nobel Prize”, the Right Livelihood Awards, about his passion for turning deserts into farmland…

It was back in the early 1980s when agronomist Tony Rinaudo took a second look at some tree stumps in Niger and the seed for a new (well, actually old  – but more on that later) type of tree management that would transform communities across the globe took root in his mind.

Facing the seemingly impossible task of getting a tree planting project up and running in what was arid farmland (the trees just kept dying), Rinaudo, an agronomist who was then working with Christian mission agency SIM, had been at the end of his tether when he cried out in frustration to God and asked Him to show him what to do.

“I’d had it out with God, I said ‘Why did you call us here? People are suffering. We’ve ruined the environment, we’ve destroyed the beautiful gift of your creation – help us! Open our eyes, show us what to do.”

It was then that, looking at the stumps of some of the millions of trees in Niger which had been cut down to supply fuel, the seed for what is known as ‘Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration’ – an idea which Rinaudo now says is “deceptively simple and self evident” – dropped into his mind.

Tony Rinaudo1

Tony Rinaudo with his pruning knife. PICTURE: Silas Koch/World Vision

“I really saw these stumps for what they were,” he says. “They weren’t bushes, which is what they looked like. They weren’t weeds. They were trees that had been cut down with an enormous potential – that massive root system, if you give it a chance, will regrow very, very quickly. But we hadn’t seen it.”

Out of that came the idea of working with farmers to prune and nuture the stems that come up from the stumps – protecting them from the elements and animals – to grow new trees.

“My primary role is convincing people that if they do this – if they protect [the trees] a little bit, prune them so you’re selecting the best and strongest stems and culling away the weaker ones…if you do this, you will have a better life, the farm will produce more…”

– Tony Rinaudo

Rinaudo says that while the biological aspect of what’s known as FMNR is very simple – “God’s built into nature the ability to regenerate”, it was the human element that posed the greater challenge.

“Unless you change human behaviour, nothing is going to happen in the field. It was people that cut the trees down, it was people that suppressed their growth because  [of] a desperate need for fuel…and there are free-ranging animals…So my primary role is convincing people that if they do this – if they protect [the trees] a little bit, prune them so you’re selecting the best and strongest stems and culling away the weaker ones…if you do this, you will have a better life, the farm will produce more…”

That remarkable realisation has since led to the development of numerous FMNR projects around the world – in countries across Africa as well as in Asia. But Rinaudo says that for him at the time, the ‘discovery’ represented a confirmation of his calling.

“For me it was a very real answer to prayer,” he says.

Last week Rinaudo, who for almost 20 years now has worked with aid and development organisation World Vision Australia, was named as among the winners of this year’s Right Livelihood Awards. The other winners of this year’s award included three Saudi Arabian civil and human rights defenders Abdullah al-Hamid, Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani and Waleed Abu al-Khair as well as Burkina Faso farmer Yacouba Sawadogo while the honorary award went to anti-corruption champions Thelma Aldanax from Guatemala and Iván Velásquez from Colombia.

The awards, known as the “alternative Nobel Prize”, will be formally presented in Stockholm on 23rd November. They are given to honour and support “courageous people and organisations that have found practical solutions to the root causes of global problems” and come with a cash prize of about $140,000 to put back into the work. 

Rinaudo, now 61 and based in Melbourne (although he spends a great deal of the year travelling), says he was “very, very grateful” for the award which recognises his almost 40 years of work. 

“I’m humbled because the bulk of the work is actually done by millions of small farmers and many colleagues in World Vision who worked very hard on often difficult days trying to convince people to adopt this.”

Tony Rinaudo2

Tony Rinaudo in the field. PICTURE: Silas Koch/World Vision

Rinaudo, who counted people like Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer and English environmentalist Richard St Barbe Baker as heroes while growing up in the rural community of Myrtleford in north-east Victoria, says farming was always an interest.

“My dad ran a Buffalo farming equipment machinery business and I’d often go out with Dad to the farms and always dreamed about having my own land,” he says.

He liked growing things – “I was the gardener in our family growing up” – and loved nature in general. He also had a strong sense of justice – he can recall being angry at the bulldozing of native forest around Myrtleford – “beautiful hills around Myrtleford just being cleared” – as well as damage being done to rivers and the fish within them by aerial spraying. And then there was what he saw happening overseas.

“Even as a young child…I’d watch the news and it was very upsetting that we could grow a crop like tobacco in Myrtleford but elsewhere children just like me, through no fault of their own, were growing up hungry.”

Growing up in a Christian home, Rinaudo recalls praying for God to “use me sometime, somewhere”. “It was a long time ago but that’s what I think happened,” he says, adding that while he personally became a Christian “in a sense” at university, there was no “Damascus Road experience because we were so steeped in our faith growing up”.

His passion for God and for farming led him to study agricultural science with the intention of eventually going overseas to work as an agronomist for a mission organisation. He studied at the University of New England and there met his wife Liz, who was also studying agriculture and who also had “a sense of calling to go to Africa to go agricultural missionary work”.

“We became interested in [mission organisation] SIM while we were at university – a flatmate used to get their magazine [and] we would read…wonderful stories about wholistic ministry, [sharing] the Gospel and meeting human needs,” he says. “And, from time to time, SIM missionaries would come and talk at chapel. That really helped us narrow down our working with them. Eventually we went to Bible college for a year and were accepted by SIM.”

Eager to get their first posting overseas, Rinaudo remembers telling SIM that he was interested in dry land agriculture which led to them deciding to send the couple to Niger, in west Africa.

“I nearly died,” says Rinaudo, “Because I knew that meant learning French as well. [I was in interested in dry land] but not that dry – [and] across the border in Nigeria, they speak English. But the die was set.”

But Niger it was and, despite Rinaudo’s unhappiness, they were assigned to a Bible college that was also used as a farm school in the country. There were plenty of frustrations but it was after they had served for a couple of years that God changed the course of their lives.

“In 1983, I made that discovery,” says Rinaudo. “Or I really should say ‘rediscovery’ because there’s actually nothing new about FMNR – it’s been practiced for centuries.

“Even in Africa growing trees with crops is an historically cultural way of doing things – it’s more within modern times people have been taught to rip out the stumps and use this mechanism and the rest of it. They’ve lost touch with where they’re come from – but many cultures in Europe, in parts of Latin America and Asia [have] one or another variation of this tree management approach.”

– Tony Rinaudo.

“Even in Africa growing trees with crops is an historically cultural way of doing things – it’s more within modern times people have been taught to rip out the stumps and use this mechanism and the rest of it. They’ve lost touch with where they’re come from – but many cultures in Europe, in parts of Latin America and Asia [have] one or another variation of this tree management approach,” he says. “I guess what I’ve done really is to recognise it and popularise it and push like crazy for people to adopt it.”

The results from the technique, Rinaudo says, have been nothing short of astounding. He says that in Niger, for example, the technique was adopted over five million hectares of what had previously been degraded farmland in the 20 years following his initial “discovery”, resulting in the regeneration of around 200 million trees.

At the same time, the gross national income of Niger – among the poorest nations in the world – rose some $US900 million and they’re now growing an additional 500,000 tons of grain a year – estimated to be enough to feed some 2.5 million people.

“On top of that, I could list environmental benefits and social benefits – it just goes on and on. For me, that prayer – ‘God forgive us for destroying the gifts of your creation, help us!’, it was answered with the gift that keeps on giving; blessing after blessing for me but mostly for the people that we’ve prayed for.”

Rinaudo, whose story is told at depth in Johannes Dietrich’s book, Tony Rinaudo – The Forestmaker, joined World Vision in 1999 with the view of leveraging their global reach (World Vision works in about 100 countries) and has now seen it rolled out to 24 countries, mostly in Africa, but also including nations like Myanmar, Indonesia, India and East Timor. Millions have benefitted from the FMNR initiatives.

“I’ve had so many doors opened to me and this award will hopefully open even more to partner with other major NGOs, to speak to government, to speak on international platforms with the view of encouraging others to at least try. Let’s see where it’s appropriate, adapt it and run with it…”

Rinaudo, whose favourite Bible verse comes from Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them”, says his journey has been one of faith.

And whenever there are challenges – and there have been plenty along the way, he says it always comes to who has called him to the task in the first place.

“I go back to those answered prayers and the way He opened doors in Niger and say ‘No, this is my calling, this is where God is leading me’.”

To support World Vision Australia’s FMNR projects, head here.

 

Donate



sight plus logo

Sight+ is a new benefits program we’ve launched to reward people who have supported us with annual donations of $26 or more. To find out more about Sight+ and how you can support the work of Sight, head to our Sight+ page.

Musings

TAKE PART IN THE SIGHT READER SURVEY!

We’re interested to find out more about you, our readers, as we improve and expand our coverage and so we’re asking all of our readers to take this survey (it’ll only take a couple of minutes).

To take part in the survey, simply follow this link…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.