Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer known as “the man who beat the desert” in Burkina Faso for revolutionising agricultural methods and creating a 75-acre forest on barren land, died on Dec. 3 in Ouahigouya, a northern provincial capital in that West African country.
Against the odds, facing the encroaching Sahara, he built a forest in Burkina Faso, becoming “a national hero” and winning acclaim abroad for his innovations.