Awareness and knowledge on fertilizer application- key accelerators for soil management, food security
Smallholder farmers in parts of Eastern Uganda have committed to increasing their adoption of fertilizers, cognizant of the rapidly deteriorating quality and health of their once ultra-rich soils. Thanks to FAO’s South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund project titled: Capacity Development on Sustainable Soil Management for Africa (1) - Uganda, farmer groups in Kumi, Bulambuli, and Namutumba Districts received training and took part in field studies involving the planting, fertilizer application, and harvesting of fertilizer-use crop demonstrations. The demonstrations, replicated in each of the three districts, were in the form of small plots of land, planted with specific varieties (local and improved) of maize and/or sorghum and different fertilizer combinations (organic and inorganic) applied. One plot was planted without any fertilizer. During the second round of farmer-faced field days, held from 18 – 21 July 2022, farmers revealed that using small amounts of manure or inorganic fertilizer is better than cultivating without using any form of soil nutrient enhancing technology. This participatory approach will help to increase farmers’ adoption of soil enhancement technologies.
According to Eria Sakwa- Chairperson of Buhatelema Farmers Group, Bukhalu sub-county, Bulambuli District, farmers in the area have long-held misconceptions about fertilizer application, claiming that fertilizers ruin soil quality.
“We have learned that we must learn to apply fertilizer, correctly, to increase our yields and eventually our household incomes and food security”, Sakwa said. “For long, we believed that fertilizer application ruins the soil; but these demonstrations have shown us otherwise. Slowly, mindsets are changing. Personally, I would rather plant one acre of maize and apply fertilizer or manure than plant 10 acres and put no fertilizer”, he added. For many rural farmers, fertilizers are expensive. For Sakwa and fellow farmers, the group pools resources to facilitate the purchase, use limited amounts or resort to manure application.
“I never used to use fertilizer and often my maize harvest was poor; also thanks to pests or long dry spells. But I have learned that using manure is very beneficial to the crops and can increase my output, enabling me to sell and keep some food at home”, says Mary Asekenye- Treasurer of California Farmers Group, Ariet sub-county, Kumi District.
Professor Moses Isabirye from Busitema University noted that at the start of the demonstrations, soil testing was conducted to establish the level of nutrients in the soils in the respective areas. The results informed the recommendation of different fertilizer combinations and blended fertilizers for specific crops. The latter included manure and urea; Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) and urea and fertilizer with micronutrients- nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK).
Farmers also learned best practices like as correct fertilizer application, timely planting, soil testing, timely weeding, pest and disease control, and purchase of improved quality seed.
Effective regulation, leadership, and policies for better soil management
According to the National State of Environment Report 2018 -19 and the Uganda Bureau of Statistics Annual Agricultural Survey 2018, Uganda’s soil fertility is declining at an alarming rate. Soil fertility is low to medium, caused mainly by land degradation, soil erosion and population explosion. Annual fertilizer use is low in the range 0.23 -1.5 kg/hectare, far below the average of 8 kg/hectare in sub-Saharan Africa. Only about 24 percent of agricultural households in Uganda use fertilizers. Urgent interventions are thus required to improve soil productivity, avert poverty and ensure food insecurity.
Funded by the Government of the People’s Republic of China and implemented by Busitema University, the Capacity Development on Sustainable Soil Management for Africa (1) Uganda project aims at developing capacity for sustainable soil management under the framework of the International Code of Conduct for Sustainable Use and Management of Fertilizers. The project contributes to generating knowledge and information on soil fertility status and fertilizer quality, disseminates practices and technologies for sustainable soil management, and develops training courses. The project also seeks to strengthen national capacities in Sustainable Soil Management through soil testing and improvement in the accuracy of recommendations on fertilizer use with technical support from the Global Soil Partnership of FAO and the Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences.
Alex Lwakuba- Commissioner for Crop Production at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), commended the Project management for blazing the trail for improved soil management in Uganda.
“Our soils are increasingly getting exhausted. This project has transformed the rhetoric about fertilizer use into practical action and placed the farmers at the fore of the intervention, enabling their full participation and subsequent adoption of nutrient enhancing technologies such as fertilizers for better soil management”, Lwakuba said. “Farmers are appreciating that the various practices improve soil nutrition, crop performance, and resilience of crops to drought. We need to intensify the application of fertility-enhancing technologies, increase farmers’ awareness about and application of fertilizers, invest in manufacturing affordable fertilizers, make fertilizers accessible to farmers and ensure access to quality farm input like a seed”.
The next step of the intervention will see farmers harvest the maize and sorghum, followed by cost-benefit analysis to determine the level of increase in farmers’ yields and livelihoods after the adoption of fertilizers. According to Prof. Isabirye, the cost-benefit analysis will also consider the farmers’ labor and time, land use rights, and skills, aspects that are often overlooked. “This will give us a better picture of the profitability and how the fertilizers are helping to generate income”, Isabirye said.
To increase fertilizer uptake, Freddie Kabango, Assistant Commissioner for Water and Soil Conservation at MAAIF called for scaling up of the project, routine soil testing to provide evidence for soil fertility improvement, increased awareness of soil fertility challenges and solutions, involvement of local leaders, and farmers’ close collaboration with agriculture extension staff.
Martin Ameu, Programme Associate at FAO reminded the farmers to be mindful of other crop enhancing practices such as using good seeds, timely weeding and pest, and disease identification and management, in order to produce sufficient quality food and uplift their lives.