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. 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?
IDS has worked with African collaborators in Mali, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe in exploring 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.
IDS work has emphasised both local dynamics and local solutions and the processes of policy encouraging and constraining appropriate solutions. A central issue is the scientific framing of the ‘soil fertility problem’, often portrayed in terms of nutrient imbalances. 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.
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