Just a few years ago, the Sahel region at the northern edge of Senegal was a “barren wasteland” where nothing had grown for 40 years. But the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and local villagers teamed up to regreen the area, bringing back agriculture, improving the economy of the people who live there, and preventing the climate migration that desertification ultimately leads to.
The biggest factor is that the cost of labour is extremely low. If the machinery costs €200 in fuel a day, you could instead pay 40 people in these rural and impoverished areas.