Growing soil conserving plants

Planting sand-binding plants

Description

Growing soil-conserving plants involves cultivating species that protect and enhance soil structure, prevent erosion, and maintain fertility. This strategy includes planting cover crops, deep-rooted grasses, and legumes to stabilize soil, reduce runoff, and add organic matter. By establishing protective vegetation, it remedies problems such as land degradation, nutrient loss, and desertification, supporting sustainable agriculture and ecosystem health through practical, ground-level interventions that restore and preserve soil resources.

Implementation

Deeply rooted, hedge-forming vetiver grass, planted in contour strips across hill slopes, slows water run-off dramatically, reduces erosion, and increases the moisture available for crop growth. Today, 90% of soil conservation efforts in India are based on such biological systems. In the Central Visayas Regional Development Project in the Philippines, a successful scheme for distributing young animals has been paired with the promotion of contour grass strips for erosion control. A farmer who establishes a 100-meter strip of napier grass is entitled to borrow a pregnant cow from the project.