Sawadogo increased the size of his zai in hopes of capturing more rainfall.

Sawadogo则希望通过增加了“zai”的尺寸来收集到更多的降水。

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But his most important innovation, he said, was to add manure to the zai during the dry season, a practice his peers derided as wasteful.

但他认为自己最重要的革新便是于旱季中在“zai”中添加肥料，但这却招来他同辈人的嘲笑，“太浪费了！”

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For example, it was a long-standing practice among local farmers to dig what they called zai—shallow pits that collected and concentrated scarce rainfall onto the roots of crops.

举例来说，在长期实践中，当地农夫发明了一种方法：挖掘出浅地坑种植农作物，这种被当地人称作“zai”的浅地坑同时也可以收集与存储稀少的雨水以灌溉农作物。

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