As the desert in West Africa's Sahel region began growing faster than ever in the 1970s and 1980s and many farmers left the land, a farmer in a small town in northern Burkina Faso developed creative methods to restore soils damaged by drought. Yacouba Sawadogo innovated on regionally well-known farming techniques to create a large, easy-to-farm foreseted area, working with his community to reinvent agriculture in the region.