Effort to control Africa's soil health crisis

With the steady drain of essential nutrients from African
soils looming as a major threat to food security across the
continent, a new report released today finds that over the
last five years, 1.7 million African farmers in 13 countries
have embraced farming practices that have rejuvenated 1.6
million hectares and helped them double or even triple crop
yields.
The analysis from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in
Africa (AGRA) focuses on intensive efforts initiated five
years ago to move aggressively to support smallholder
farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, where a lack of agriculture
extension services and a scarcity of basic soil supplements
have contributed to severely depressed yields for crucial
staples like maize, banana and cassava.
While farmers in many parts of the world regularly harvest
up to five tons of maize per hectare (about 2.5 acres),
African farmers typically harvest one ton. Overall, depleted
soils cost African farmers US$4 billion each year in lost
productivity.
“We’ve shown that it’s possible to work on a very large
scale to help smallholder farmers adopt sustainable and
profitable approaches to crop production, with the proof
there for all to see in the form of significantly larger yields,”
said Dr. Bashir Jama, director of AGRA’s Soil Health
Program.
The new evidence of success in addressing what many
agriculture experts view as the most significant soil health
crisis in the world comes in the wake of a June summit in
Equatorial Guinea during which the leaders of African Union
member countries pledged to significantly step up their
support for the continent’s long neglected agriculture
sector.
As part of their commitment to ending hunger in Africa by
2025, the heads of state cited the need to double
agricultural productivity, with access to high quality
“inputs” for crops at the top of the list.
According to the AGRA analysis, unsustainable farming
practices, like a failure to rotate crops or apply mineral or
organic fertilizers, along with persistent soil erosion, are
depriving croplands across sub-Saharan Africa of 30 to 80
kilos per hectare of essential plant nutrients like
phosphorous and nitrogen. The report warns that such
losses threaten to “kill Africa’s hopes for a food-secure
future.”
AGRA’s Soil Health Program has approached the problem
by supporting an extensive network of partnerships in 13
countries in which three million farmers have been trained
in an approach to growing crops called “Integrated Soil
Fertility Management” or ISFM.
Already, some 1.7 million farmers have adopted ISFM
practices, which involve doing things like mixing in organic
matter such as crop residues and manure into the soil,
applying small amounts of mineral fertilizers, and planting
legume crops like cowpea, soybean and pigeon pea that
can naturally deposit nitrogen into the soil.
The improvements in crop yields - the increase in the
amount farmers are harvesting from the same piece of land
- over the past five years have been substantial. Some
examples follow:
In Tanzania, farmers adopting a combination of ISFM
practices and new, improved crop varieties more than
doubled their maize yields, from 1.5 to 3.5 tons per hectare,
while pigeon pea yields increased from 0.6 to 1.4 tons per
hectare.
In Malawi, maize yields more than doubled, from 2 to 4.6
tons per hectare and soybean yields rose from 0.7 to 1.3
tons per hectare.
In Ghana, maize yields increased from 1.5 to 3.5 tons per
hectare and soybean from 0.9 to 1.5 tons per hectare.
“Soil health has been an essential element of Ghana’s rapid
success in boosting agriculture production,” said Fifi Fiavi
Kwetey, Ghana’s Minister of Food and Agriculture. “AGRA’s
support has been crucial to helping farmers in Ghana
acquire the technical expertise and also the high quality
crop inputs, like fertilizers, that they need to ensure the
long-term viability of their soils.”
A key priority of AGRA’s Soil Health Program is to make it
easier for farmers to acquire and properly apply mineral
fertilizers. While overuse of fertilizers has caused
environmental problems in other parts of the world, a 2009
study by scientists at Stanford University warned that
underuse of fertilizers by farmers in sub-Saharan was a
major impediment to improving soil quality and increasing
food production. Faced with high prices - fertilizers in Africa
often cost twice as much as they do in other countries - and
low supplies, African farmers use on average about 10 kilos
of fertilizers per hectare, while the global average is around
100.
According to the AGRA analysis, the organization’s efforts
to help rural agrodealers stock more fertilizers have
enabled smallholder farmers to acquire an additional
180,000 tons of fertilizer. If used as part of a broader soil
management program, that’s enough fertilizer to help about
1.8 million farmers revive 3.5 million hectares of depleted
land and triple the amount of cereals they produce.
AGRA also is encouraging innovative approaches to
fertilizer use by working, for example, with Burkina Faso’s
Institute of Environment and Agricultural Research (the
Institut de l'Environnement et des Recherches Agricoles or
INERA) to develop a new machine that applies fertilizer in
“micro-doses,” adding just a few pellets for each seed.
In addition, AGRA is supporting an innovative effort called
the African Fertilizer Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP),
which also includes the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD), the International Fertilizer
Development Center (IFDC), the African Development Bank
(AfDB), and the Agricultural Market Development Trust -
Africa (AGMARK). The goal is to develop new fertilizer
production, storage and retail operations, with an initial
focus on providing an additional 225,000 tons of fertilizer to
farmers in three countries - Ghana, Mozambique and
Tanzania - and to lower prices farmers pay by 15 percent or
more.
“There is much more to soil health than fertilizers, but they
are an essential ingredient for unleashing the potential of
Africa’s smallholder farmers to create a uniquely African
Green Revolution that delivers jobs and better incomes to
rural communities and creates more sustainable
approaches to farming,” Jama said.
He said that going forward; AGRA’s Soil Health Program
wants to become even more ambitious, with efforts to work
across an entire country to encourage adoption of ISFM
practices. And it will continue to support governments in
efforts to improve quality control for farm inputs and to
develop a new brain trust of soil scientists, extension
workers and farmer experts.
The report on soil health noted that over the last five years,
AGRA has helped train 4,800 extension workers and 134,000
lead farmers, while also supporting more than 170 students
- half of whom are women - studying soil science and
agronomy at African universities.
About AGRA AGRA is a dynamic partnership working across
the African continent to help millions of small-scale farmers
and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger.
AGRA programs develop practical solutions to significantly
boost farm productivity and incomes for the poor while
safeguarding the environment. AGRA advocates for policies
that support its work across all key aspects of the African
agricultural value chain - from seeds, soil health and water
to markets and agricultural education. AGRA works across
sub-Saharan Africa and maintains a head office in Nairobi,
Kenya; a regional office for West Africa in Accra, Ghana;
and country offices in Mali, Mozambique and Tanzania.
Learn more at www.agra.org