this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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Farmers in Africa say their soil is dying and chemical fertilizers are in part to blame (apnews.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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When Benson Wanjala started farming in his western Kenya village two and a half decades ago, his 10-acre farm could produce a bountiful harvest of 200 bags of maize. That has dwindled to 30. He says his once fertile soil has become a nearly lifeless field that no longer earns him a living.

Like many other farmers, he blames acidifying fertilizers pushed in Kenya and other African countries in recent years. He said he started using the fertilizers to boost his yield and it worked — until it didn’t. Kenya’s government first introduced a fertilizer subsidy in 2008, making chemical fertilizers more accessible for smaller-scale farmers.

Problems with soil health are growing as the African continent struggles to feed itself. Africa has 65% of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land but has spent about $60 billion annually to import food, according to the African Development Bank. The spending is estimated to jump to $110 billion by 2025 due to increased demand and changing consumption habits.

“Inorganic fertilizers were never meant to be the foundation of crop production,” he said, later adding that because of “commercially inclined farming, our soils are now poor, acidic, and low in biomass resources, and without life!”

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Years ago I went to Kenya and Tanzania to asses some fields for trials of new cultivars my group was developing. There were a lot of issues with people seeing a yearly decrease in crop yield. But the major issue was actually the lack of crop rotation causing a buildup of disease in the soil which was weakening the plants each year.

I don't know this guy or his field. And, not carefully fertilizing fields can cause root burn for sure. But poor agricultural yield in Africa is definitely impacted by poor crop rotation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Wasn't farming invented in Africa? Or at least the nearby Middle East. This has been a known issue for years.

I bet it's an issue with farmers needing money now, because of low crop prices. Crop prices are cyclical, so hopefully it works itself out without too much economic damage.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

Soccer was invented in England. How's that going for them?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It would have been developed by humans all around the world at the same time. Technology and knowledge weren't the limiting factor--humans have always known that you can toss some seeds in the soil and a plant will come out. What was lacking was the climate--the last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago and only after that was massive cultivation possible. It was after that where you see settlements and eventually cities appear.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's more complex than this, but it's related to climatic change.

First, we're still in the ice age. We're just in an interglacial period.

During the glaciation, humans mainly hunted a few big game. It was an inhospitable environment.

When the glaciation ended, the climate became more stable, warmer, more clement. Rivers rised and became calmer, as the sea level rose.

Humans started diversifying and broadening what they ate. They collected much more plants, hunted more animal species, notably small game, fished much more. It was the mesolithic.

In zones that were particularly abundant in resources, probably at the edges of ecozones, it became possible and interesting to settle down somewhat, and defend this territory against outsiders. Owning resources allowed to invest time and labor into making things more productive. Domestication was part of that.

Not all regions are suitable, or have sufficient domesticable species. Some places took much longer than others to really get farming going, and most never did, until domesticates arrived there from somewhere else.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Hmm, it seemed to be a problem with subsistence crops too. We were working on black rot resistance in sukuma wiki which isn't a cash crop. We were working on resistance specifically because it reduced the need to rotate crops. People could grow it more continuously without risking yield loss.