A report published last month by the Montpellier Panel – an
eminent group of agriculture, ecology and trade experts from Africa and Europe
– says about 65 percent of Africa’s arable land is too damaged to sustain
viable food production. The Montpellier Panel has recommended, among others,
that African governments and donors invest in land and soil management, and
create incentives particularly on secure land rights to encourage the care and
adequate management of farm land. According to the Montpellier Panel report, an
estimated 180 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are affected by land degradation.
The burdens caused by Africa’s damaged soils are
disproportionately carried by the continent’s resource-poor farmers,” says the
chair of the Montpellier Panel, Professor Sir Gordon Conway
According to the FAO, human pressure on the resource has
left a third of all soils on which food production depends degraded worldwide.
The amount of arable and productive land available per person in 2050 will be a
fourth of the level it was in 1960 as the FAO says it can take up to 1,000
years to form a centimetre of soil. A truly disturbing picture of the problems
of soil was painted by the National Geographic magazine in a recent edition. “By
1991, an area bigger than the United States and Canada combined was lost to
soil erosion—and it shows no signs of stopping,” wrote agroecologist Jerry
Glover in the article “Our Good Earth.” In fact, says Glover, “native forests
and vegetation are being cleared and converted to agricultural land at a rate
greater than any other period in history. We still continue to harvest more
nutrients than we replace in soil,” he says. If a country is extracting oil,
people worry about what will happen if the oil runs out. But they don’t seem to
worry about what will happen if we run out of soil.
Adds Rattan Lal, soil scientist: “Political stability,
environmental quality, hunger, and poverty all have the same root. In the long
run, the solution to each is restoring the most basic of all resources, the
soil.”
Meanwhile, a new report by U.S. researchers cites global
warming as another impact on soil with devastating consequences. According to
the report “Climate Change and Security in Africa”, the continent is expected
to see a rise in average temperature that will be higher than the global
average. Annual rainfall is projected to decrease throughout most of the
region, with a possible exception of eastern Africa.
“Less rain will have serious implications for sub-Saharan
agriculture, 75 percent of which is rain-fed… Average predicated production
losses by 2050 for African crops are: maize 22 percent, sorghum 17 percent,
millet 17 percent, groundnut 18 percent, and cassava 8 percent. Hence, in the
absence of major interventions in capacity enhancements and adaption measures,
warming by as little as 1.5C threatens food production in Africa
significantly.”
Soil health is critical to enhancing the productivity of
Africa’s agriculture, a major source of employment and a huge contributor to
GDP, says development expert and acting divisional manager in charge of
Visioning & Knowledge management at the Forum for Agricultural Research in
Africa (FARA), Wole Fatunbi.
“The use of simple and appropriate tools that suits the
smallholders system and pocket should be explored while there is need for
policy interventions including strict regulation on land use for agricultural
purposes to reduce the spate of land degradation,” Fatunbi told IPS. He
explained that 15 years ago he developed a set of technologies using vegetative
material as green manure to substitute for fertiliser use in the Savannah of
West Africa. The technology did not last because of the laborious process of
collecting the material and burying it to make compost. “If technologies do not
immediately lead to more income or more food, farmers do not want them because
no one will eat good soil,” said Fatunbi. “Soil fertility measures need to be
wrapped in a user friendly packet. Compost can be packed as pellets with
fortified mineral fertilisers for easy application.” Fatunbi cites the land
terrace system to manage soil erosion in the highlands of Uganda and Rwanda as
a success story that made an impact because the systems were backed
legislation. Also, the use of organic manure in the Savannah region through an
agriculture system integrating livestock and crops has become a model for
farmers to protect and promote soil health.
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