Assessing the Potential to Change Stakeholders Knowledge and Practices on Fertilizer Recommendations in Africa

Rware, Harrison; Wairegi, L.; Oduor, G.I.; Macharia, Martin; Romney, D.L.; Tarfa, Bitrus Dawi; Maria, Ricardo de; Ley, G.J.; Tetteh, F. M.; Makumba, Wilson; Dicko, Mohamed; Nouri, Maman; Leon, Nabahungu N.; Gondwe, Brian; Kaizzi, Kayuki C.; Demissie, Negash; Kibunja, C.N.; Alawy, Abdillahi; Wartmann, Charles; Rutsimba, Emmanuel

doi:10.4236/as.2014.514149

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Because ISFM practices are designed to curb soil nutrient depletion they have great potential for reducing deforestation in slash-and-burn systems across the larger Democratic Republic of the Congo Basin. Combining organic and mineral inputs has been advocated as a sound management principle for smallholder farming in the tropics because neither of the two inputs is usually available in sufficient quantities and because positive interactions between both inputs have often been observed (Paul et al, 2013), but as explained in this brief many of the ISFM principles are shared with other sustainable agricultural practices and thereby applicable to different cropping systems, geographies, climates and economies (Rware et al, 2014).…”

Section: Range Of Applicabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Recarbonizing global soils: A technical manual of recommended sustainable soil management

Rietra

Lesschen

Porre

2021

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Cover cropping (CC) can be applied worldwide, but there is not a cover crop that fits every farming situation and potential benefits vary with climate, soil type and plant species. In detail, CCs can better fit in humid and subhumid regions than in semiarid regions where precipitation is limited (Unger and Vigil, 1998). The possible competition of CCs for available soil water in semiarid regions can limit the adoption of the practice (Unger and Vigil, 1998;Nielsen et al., 2015). A different approach to agricultural management is required for arable and woody crops. Impact on soil organic carbon stocksThe C storage potential of CCs is quite variable at regional level and with land use, ranging from 0.27 to 1.03 tC/ha/yr in the examined meta-analyses (Table 1). A higher potential was found in woody crops in warm temperate dry climates (about 1.00 tC/ha/yr), and lower values in arable crops most for temperate and tropical climates (0.32-0.56 tC/ha/yr). C storage potential in arable systems was 0.71, 0.51 and 0.46 tC/ha/yr in tropical, temperate and arid climates respectively (Jian et al., 2020). Data from a literature review (Blanco-Canqui et al.

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Section: Range Of Applicabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Recarbonizing global soils: A technical manual of recommended sustainable soil management

Rietra

Lesschen

Porre

2021

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“…This has largely been attributed to high cost of fertilizers and its unavailability on rural markets (Laube et al, 2012). Even when fertilizers and subsidies are available, there have been difficulties in convincing smallholder farmers to apply fertilizer to the crop (Jalloh et al, 2013;Rware et al, 2014). This suggests that other factors, besides unaffordability and unavailability of the agro-input might influence farmers' attitudes towards its use.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of smallholder farmers on sorghum production preferences and constraints in the Upper East Region of Ghana

Azu¹,

Elegba²,

Asare³

et al. 2021

J. Agric. Ext. Rural Dev

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In spite of several strategies implemented to improve sorghum production in Ghana, average grain yield in farmers' fields remains low and far below the estimated potential. The development of effective strategies requires continuous, in-depth understanding of production constraints as well as farmer preferences for crop traits. To this end, a participatory rural appraisal using focus group discussions, interviews with semi-structured questionnaires and preference ranking was carried out among 122 smallholder sorghum farmers in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Majority (91%) of respondents were engaged in farming with more than half of their farm sizes allocated to sorghum cultivation. Drought, high cost of farm inputs and declining soil fertility were the top three constraints. Almost 42% of farmers described their soils as low in fertility. The most preferred traits by farmers were drought tolerance, high grain yield, earliness, grain quality as well as low fertilizer requirement. A better understanding of the perceptions of farmers and factors that limit the adoption of improved technology is important to guide policy towards the design of effective crop improvement and extension programmes. The study highlights the importance of breeding sorghum varieties with traits preferred by smallholder farmers that will lead to increased adoption of improved technology.

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“…However, existing fertilizer recommendations do not allow farmers to maximize net returns on their investment. In addition to these issues a lack of information about correct application rates, timings, and the use of the correct products for different crops compounds the problems associated with blanket fertilizer recommendations (Rware et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, with the recent clarion call for farmers to practice farming as a business, there is a paradigm shift on the real focus by farmers is maximising returns to fertilizer investment. The small holder farmers are more focused in using fertilizer for increased yields and get increased returns to investment given their little income for farming inputs (Rware et al, 2014). This paper therefore, addresses the process of developing a fertilizer use optimization approach with the extension workers using the optimization approach to advice farmers to optimize returns from fertilizer use.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fertilizer use optimization approach: An innovation to increase agricultural profitability for African farmers

Rware¹,

Kayuki²,

Macharia³

et al. 2016

Afr. J. Agric. Res.

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Farmers in Africa have not been fully convinced to invest in fertilizer due to uncertainty on returns to investment. This is despite the fact that, more than two-thirds of people in Sub-Saharan Africa rely on agriculture for employment with many living on small farms earning less than $1 per day. Usage of fertilizer has remained low and stagnant hence the yields in have been persistently lower than other parts of the world. To address the plight of the smallholder farmers' inability to optimize productivity in fertilizer use, a collaborative research project Optimization of Fertilizer Recommendations in African (OFRA) 2013 to 2016 was designed through the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) funding, implemented by Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI) and science support by the University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL). Broad objective was to develop AEZs and crop specific fertilizer recommendations for 13 SSA countries and development of fertilizer optimization approach for smallholder farmers to maximize returns to investment. This paper describes the optimization approach and how it works for farmers benefits. About 65 agro ecological zones (AEZs) specific fertilizer optimization tools (FOTs) for 14 important SSA crops (54%) were developed. Two complimentary tools the paper too and nutrient substitution table were developed to work concurrently with the FOT.

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Assessing the Potential to Change Stakeholders Knowledge and Practices on Fertilizer Recommendations in Africa

Cited by 7 publications

References 5 publications

Recarbonizing global soils: A technical manual of recommended sustainable soil management

Recarbonizing global soils: A technical manual of recommended sustainable soil management

Responses of smallholder farmers on sorghum production preferences and constraints in the Upper East Region of Ghana

Fertilizer use optimization approach: An innovation to increase agricultural profitability for African farmers

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