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Using technologies to breathe life into dead soils
Advancing food security and environmental sustainability in farming systems requires an integrated soil fertility management. JULIANA AGBO highlights stakeholders activities towards addressing problematic soils in Nigeria.
Nigerian soils are found to be of medium to high potentials despite its constraints and problems that militate against high crop yields.
However, problematic soils come in one or two of acidic or alkaline and saline soils. Militating factors against high crop yields are soil erosion, salinisation, flooding, declining fertility, desert encroachment, mismanagement and misuse.
While soils are essential to achieve food security and eradicate hunger, food security and nutrition rely on healthy soils which are the foundation of our food systems.
To this end, OCP Africa Fertilisers Limited and the Nigerian Institute of Soil Science (NISS) have entered into partnership to improve soil quality and sustainability with a view to increasing agricultural productivity.
The project which OCP said will provide the financial support needed, while NISS will provide the needed technical support, is a collaboration towards management of problematic soils through innovation and technologies.
The Country Manager of OCP Africa, Caleb Usoh, while explaining that there is food insecurity and poverty within the farming population due to poor productivity, said the average productivity per hectare on farmlands in Nigeria is very low, which is as a result of the soil condition.
Speaking on management of problematic soils, Usoh said management of the problematic soils should be directed towards enhanced crop productivity either through addition of soil amendments to correct the -anomalies-or by manipulating the agronomic practices depending upon the climatic and edaphic conditions.
Rationale behind the project
Explaining the reason for initiating the project, Usoh said beyond the supply of fertilisers and other farm inputs, there is need to bridge the education gap by providing extension workers with the necessary capacity to guide farmers.
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“This includes, but not limited to knowledge and management of problematic soils via sustainable agronomic practices.
“Problematic soils come in one or two of acidic or alkaline or saline Soils. They are soils in which plant root system does not grow normally due to toxic hydrogen ions, permeability of plant membranes is adversely affected due to low soil pH; enzyme actions may be altered since they are sensitive to pH fluctuations.
“They are soils in which Aluminum (AI), Manganese (Mn) and Iron (Fe) are available in toxic quantities. In problematic soils, phosphorous gets immobilised and its availability is reduced and most of the activities of beneficial organisms like Azotobacter and nodule forming bacteria of legumes are adversely affected as acidity increases.”
NISS Registrar Prof. Victor Chude said the project is targeting acidic soils, saline soils, alkaline soil, adding that there are other problematic soils like soils with very thick laterite that crops find it difficult to penetrate.
He said the major soil problem which is the acidic soil, cover about 75 per cent of the country.
“The implication is farmers facing these limitations suffer from making good yields”, he said.
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Permanent Secretary Dr Ernest Umakhihe said the proposed project is focusing on the correction of problematic soils for disseminating technologies.
He said there is undisputable evidence that Nigeria has a large areas of land with soils that are no longer productive or have very low productivity.
Project goal and objectives
Prof. Chude said the goal was to improve soil quality, sustainability and increase agricultural productivity through effective sustainable management of problematic soils.
On the objectives, he said there will be on field assessment of soil fertility status by carrying out survey, which entails data collection and analysis of soil samples in the target areas to promote the formulation of crop/site specific fertiliser blends as a precision strategy to efficient food production.
Primary beneficiaries
Prof. Chude said the intended directed beneficiaries of the project’s findings are the farming communities including 30 percent smallholder female farmers, 30 percent youth and 40 percent others.
The NISS Registrar further explained that the beneficiaries will be derived from maize, rice, vegetable and cassava associations in the 12 states. He said the state governments will benefit from the project of the project to address the marginal soils in the respective states.
