The decline of soil fertility is a major threat to agriculture and food security in
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Enforced organic matter production by modern agroforestry
systems (planting of nitrogen fixing trees, leguminous shrubs together with food crops),
as well as the use of mulch and compost have shown to increase and maintain soil
fertility. Yet these techniques have failed to be implemented in farmers’ cropping
systems on a large scale. This research project, therefore, aims at identifying the
agronomic, socio-economic, cultural, and communicative reasons that promote the
adoption of tested agricultural technologies. We assume the integration of farmers in
the design and management of innovations to be important to reverse the trend of
declining soil fertility. In the proposed project farmer-driven soil fertility management
techniques will be developed jointly with researchers at both on-station and on-farm
levels. As part of an outreach campaign these innovations will be disseminated to
farmers’ communities in order to assess challenges and to identify hindering and
favoring factors associated with its adoption. The application of research results in
farming practice is an important focus of the project with communication involved in
all processes. Political and societal groups will be involved and informed on the
outcome of the project in order to influence their working procedures.
The study will be conducted in relatively humid and arid climatic zones of Mali, Ghana,
Kenya and Zambia. In each of these countries FiBL and IAM/ZHAW researchers will
collaborate with partners at universities and research stations, extension services and
farmers. Most research will be done by PhD students and associated MSc studies
supervised by local and international experts in the respective field, leading to peer
reviewed publications. The study is expected to improve research design, provide easily
adoptable soil fertility management techniques, address institutional barriers and soil
governance, change habits and attitudes of farmers and local society towards
agricultural sustainability, and identify the best processes of communication according
to farmers' needs. It is further expected that our interdisciplinary approach applied in
the four countries will be scalable to the whole Sub-Saharan Africa. This project has
the potential to contribute significantly to agricultural productivity, environmental
stability, and the resilience of food systems.