Can Organic Soil Fertility Management Sustain Farming and Increase Food Security Among African Smallholder Farmers?

Abstract

AbstractIn Africa, smallholder subsistence farmers contribute up to 70% to the national food basket, making these farmers very important in attaining food security. However, most of these farmers are located in areas characterized by poor-quality soils with limited productivity. Furthermore, around the 1960s, green revolution technologies were advocated for adoption by all farmers, and these involved the intensive use of industrially manufactured chemicals in production, soil tillage and mono-cropping systems. These technologies tended to only feed the crop for increased productivity and ignored to feed the soil, which has resulted in soil degradation in mostly smallholder farming areas. The challenge of soil degradation is now being aggravated by the change in climate, which has seen the productivity of smallholder farmers declining, thus threatening the food security of most African countries. This chapter, therefore, presents the aspect of organic soil fertility management and its potential in increasing the productivity and resilience of African smallholder farmers by increasing soil health. The idea of feeding the soil to feed the crop is highlighted as being critical in abating the challenges caused by soil degradation and climate change. The chapter indicates that technologies like mixed cropping, crop rotations, using improved organic matter sources like biochar, residue retention and minimum tillage are principal drivers in increasing the productivity among the smallholder farmers. The aspects where more research is still required to enhance the adoption of these technologies are also highlighted.KeywordsCrop rotationBiological nitrogen fixationConservation agricultureAnimal manureVermicompostsSoil qualityOrganic matter