Hot Topic Archive - Soils and Fertilizers
One of the 'quick wins' identified by the Millennium Project's assessment
of how to halve hunger by 2015 was for a massive effort to replenish nutrient
depleted soils in Africa through a combination of chemical fertilizers
and agroforestry. Nigeria is hosting a 'Fertilizer Summit' organised by
IFDC for Africa in 2006, with President Obasanjo taking the lead to follow
up on these recommendations. But what should be the key elements of the
debate at the summit? With less than 10kg/ha of fertilizer being applied
on average to African farm lands, access to soil nutrients is of course
a key issue if African agriculture is to grow sustainably in the future.
But how can soil fertility be improved? This is of course a long-running
debate, and Africa has seen many fertilizer and soil management projects
falter in the past. Central is how to encourage a balanced approach, recognising
the diversity of soil fertility constraints across farm landscapes. The
simplistic, blanket solutions often suggested in grand plans for 'soil
replenishment' often miss this. A key question is: are decentralized participatory
approaches which are responsive to local diversity and complexity influencing
current thinking around soils and fertilizer policies - if not, why not,
and how can they be supported? Such issues are highlighted in some of
the papers in a recent issue of Land Use Policy, focusing on soil degradation
in Africa. A recent e-forum discussion highlighted the challenges faced
by input markets, and the critical need to address institutional and policy
issues, not just technical ones. Past reforms to the fertilizer sector
have assumed the blossoming of a private sector-led supply system, but
this has often not arisen. A number of institutional challenges are highlighted
in the e-forum summary, including the need to 'kick-start' markets, perhaps
through voucher schemes, and develop fertilizer recommendations that are
locally specific and attuned to rainfall variations. Institutional perspectives
highlight legal and technical aspects market development – such as
contract enforcement and information – but we also need to better
understand how local input markets are structured by social, economic
and political power relations. Market concentration and standardization
in agri-food commodity chains has received increasing attention, but we
still know little about such dynamics in fertilizer markets. To avoid
the failings of a one-size-fits-all approach therefore, policies that
are attuned to local soils, markets and farming conditions – and
that take a decentralised, participatory approach - are needed, requiring
much more than a simple focus on inputs.
Sources
Africa Fertilizer Summit
- 9-13 June 2006, Abuja, Nigeria
UN
Millennium Project website - Task Force on Hunger
International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development website
Soil Degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa, A. Hartemink and H. van Keulen
(eds), Land Use Policy, 2005, Vol 22(1) - see articles by Mortimore
and Harris and Fairhead and Scoones
Increasing
Fertizer Use in Africa: What have we learned? E-forum commissioned
by the World Bank and hosted by NRI International in collaboration with
Imperial College London. Also see the summary
paper...
Policies
for Soil Fertility Management in Africa. A Report Prepared for the Department
for International Development, 1999, Toulmin and Scoones
'A Realistic View
on Increasing Fertiliser use in Sub-Saharan Africa', (see under Debates)
Bert Meertens, Rural Development Expert
