Farmers sound alarm as once-promising plant threatens local community: 'We can't tackle it alone'

Farmers sound alarm as once-promising plant threatens local community: 'We can't tackle it alone'

A once-promising desert-fighting tree is now wreaking havoc across Ethiopia.  What's happening? As reported by AFP (via Barron's), prosopis, a thorny, drought-tolerant shrub native to Latin America, was planted in Ethiopia in the 1970s with the hope that it would stabilize soil and provide shade. Instead, it has exploded uncontrollably. Over the past few decades, the plant has spread across 20,000 square kilometers of Afar and is rapidly pushing…