Fertilizer Technique Boosts Crop Yields in Africa

Aug. 29, 2008 -- A simple and cheap technique of applying fertilizer in small doses at the right time can double wheat crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa and feed millions of people, agronomists said in a report.

A four-year experiment with the technique in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger has boosted sorghum and millet production by 44 to 120 percent, and family incomes by 50 to 130 percent, said an International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) report published Thursday.

The successful technique coupled with awareness of soil type, grain variety and irregular rainfall in the region "has the potential to end widespread hunger in drought prone areas of sub-Saharan Africa", said ICRISAT Assistant Director for West and Central Africa Ramadjita Tabo.

He hopes the system will be adopted by 500,000 farmers in the region over the next five years.

Farmers are quick to learn and can be trained in just one week, Tabo said.

He said they are shown that only six grams of fertilizer per plant is enough, and that small holes dug in the dry ground and filled with manure before the rainy season will hold water for a longer time.

When it starts to rain, a micro-dosis of fertilizer and a plant are placed in each hole so roots can spread quickly an retain even more water, Tabo said.

"Land degradation is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa where the soil has been overused, coupled with low, unpredictable rainfall," he stressed.

Farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are so poor they exploit the land to the maximum and consider the cost of fertilizer too high a risk in case of a bad harvest.

"With microdosing, they don't invest much and that reduces their risk," Tabo said.

Fertilizer in Africa is difficult to find and costs two to six times more than the average world price because of low sale volumes, difficulty of transport and because it is not produced locally.

With micro-doses, farmers only need 10 percent of the fertilizer used for wheat and five percent for corn, the ICRISAT report said.