Soil fertility decline is an important initiator of land degradation leading to, eventually, loss of productive lands. It thereby is one of the major challenges to be addressed in order to meet the demand for agricultural products. Past interventions have focussed on either i) improving the supply of nutrients through (different forms of) fertilizer policies, ii) increasing the demand of nutrients through (local) demonstrations and iii) increasing the efficiency of nutrient use through soil and water conservation measures. All of these approaches can be successful in their context, but none of them has been able to halt or revert the current decline of soil fertility in many smallholder farming systems in (especially) SSA. Innovative approaches are needed that integrate access, demand and efficiency of nutrients. Notably, through globalization and urbanization the polarization of nutrients (i.e. the accumulation of nutrients in one site and the depletion of nutrient in another site) is expected to increase, with detrimental effects on both sites. For more information see the brochure in the attachment.
Christy van Beek