Demonstration Farm

ADI exists to help families produce, consume, and market nutritious food. In alignment with this purpose, ADI partners with a local women’s cooperative, Fouboualla, in the town of Gouraye, Mauritania, and operates a one-acre garden that has existed in the local community since the 1960’s.

The garden employs two laborers and demonstrates the production techniques and use of materials that are effective and relevant technology for the local community. The demonstration garden also provides the opportunity to experience firsthand, then solve for, the difficulties that accompany tending a family garden.

In the midst of a well that has continually functioned since the 1960’s and old irrigation canals that no longer function, ADI installed solar panels in the garden. These solar panels light the mud brick house in which our garden manager resides and provide energy to the solar pump that moves water from the well to water reservoirs on the property.

The garden also demonstrates the value of practices such as drip irrigation and protecting plants from birds and insects with netting.

The garden includes eggplant, okra, pumpkin, squash, watermelon, and lettuce. ADI also grows varieties of plants that are not traditionally part of Mauritanian gardening traditions, such as lemongrass, aloe, and jasmine.

Pepper plants in the garden watered by drip irrigation