Fallow cultivation system and farmers' resource management in Niger, West Africa

Abstract

A survey was carried out in 136 farm-households from seven villages in 1995 and 1996 to analyse the traditional fallow cultivation system in Niger. Farmers were asked to give information about land use on their fields, focusing on cropping and fallow periods as well as on cultivation changes compared to the past. In addition, they were interviewed about their management strategies to maintain or improve soil fertility.Millet-based systems clearly dominate at all sites, either in pure form or intercropped with cowpea, groundnut, sorghum or roselle. At present, almost half of all farmers cultivate their fields on average up to 5 years until it is left fallow. About one-third use their fields permanently. Most farmers use short fallow periods of 1 to 5 years. Moreover, there was a decrease in the cropping area left fallow, and the fallow period also decreased steadily in the past years. In the mid-1970s the average fallow period was about 8 years, decreasing to 2Á5 years in 1996. The actual fallow periods are too short to allow sufficient positive effects on soil fertility and farmers are aware of this problem. Consequently, farmers employ different fertilization techniques which aim at maintaining or restoring the soil nutrient pool of the fields while providing physical protection against wind and water erosion. Most farmers use animal manure to improve soil fertility and apply mulch from different sources, millet stalks and branches, for soil regeneration. Few farmers employ other strategies such as mineral fertilizer or planting pits.The farmers try to optimize the use of internal and external resources resulting in a mixture of different fertilization and soil protection methods. Internal resources play by far the most important role. Due to the generally limited resource availability farmers concentrate their management efforts on certain areas within each field or on selected fields only. This means a decreased crop production for the individual household and a higher risk of soil degradation because of soil mining or increased erosion risk on the field area where soil fertility management cannot be practised.

Farmer’s Knowledge and Perception of Diversified Farming Systems in Sub-Humid and Semi-Arid Areas in Benin

“…Furthermore, the implementation of crop-tree-livestock systems was significantly and positively correlated with farmers' knowledge of agrobiodiversity (crops, trees and animal species) management. These results highlighted the critical role of farmers' ecological knowledge in managing natural resources and local environment [51,58] and in enhancing the social-ecological resilience to hazards [59,60].…”

A critical analysis of challenges and opportunities for soil fertility restoration in Sudano-Sahelian West Africa

“…Fallowing improves the soil nutrient status through the capture of mineral-rich soil particles (in particular of K and Ca) eroded by wind near the fallow or in distant source areas (Herrmann 1996;Sterk et al 1996;Rajot 2001;Wezel and Haigis 2002). Mineralisation of fallow shoot and root biomass increases SOM, and fallow legumes may help to raise soil N by symbiotic N 2 -fixation.…”

Response of organic nitrogen in Black Soil to long-term different fertilization and tillage practices in Northeast China

“…Fallow systems are widely used in South America, Asia, and Africa as a strategy to restore soil fertility without purchasing external inputs, and are often successful in maintaining productivity in low fertile soils (Sanchez 1999;Wezel & Haigis 2002;Burgers et al 2005;Couteaux et al 2008;Gomez-Montano et al 2013). In this work, fallow management could increase the organic nitrogen content in Black Soil, similarly as in many experiments (Hervé 1994;Masse et al 2004;Miranda et al 2009).…”