Growing Nations: Reviving Lesotho's Soil, One Planting Basin at a Time

Growing Nations began in 2002 when its founder started teaching conservation agriculture to farmers in Tebellong, a remote district of Lesotho's south-eastern highlands where decades of plough-based farming had cut maize yields to roughly 450-500 kg per hectare. Its 'likoti' method, small, precisely spaced planting basins that keep soil covered and undisturbed, has since spread nationwide with support from the FAO, WFP and German Red Cross. Independent research on likoti adopters found trained farmers reaching yields of 2.2 to 3.7 tonnes per hectare, several times the national average of 0.5-0.8 t/ha, while a national FAO survey of 229 farmers found conservation-agriculture households turning a profit where conventional plough farmers lost money. Growing Nations now runs a training centre in Maphutseng that hosts resident farmer-students for weeks-long courses in the method.