How Sustainable Cropping Practices Are Transforming Agriculture In Western & Sub-Saharan Africa
There are exciting prospects across West and sub-Saharan Africa. Up to 840 million hectares of untapped agricultural land could be utilized to increase production across the region. Still, much of this land is in isolated areas.
Smaller outfits
Land expansion is unlikely to be a major driver of growth. Rather, the growing production of smaller-sized farms will be the most crucial driver. For example, there are fewer than 100 farms larger than 50 hectares in Nigeria. Meanwhile, there is a growing class of five to 100-hectare-size farms across the continent.
Sustainability is an integral factor amid this growth. Primarily, progressing land and water management on just 25% of sub-Saharan Africa’s 300 million hectares of main cropland would provide another 22 million tons of food.
Thus, sustainable cropping practices are being monitored and implemented in this game-changing chapter. Solutions such as reorienting small-scale farming to maintain regional economic growth and restore depleted landscapes are required.
Working together
In practice, institutions such as the African Wildlife Foundation collaborate with farming communities to bring in sustainable farming practices that boost agricultural output and sustain ecological integrity.
The African Wildlife Foundation explains:
“In the breadbasket of Tanzania, overexploitation of natural resources and land conversion by smallholder farmers in the Kilombero Valley has made poor harvests, deforestation, and human-wildlife conflict a worsening reality. With support from IUCN’s SUSTAIN-Africa initiative, our Inclusive Green Growth program in the Kilombero Valley continues to transform thousands of lives in the landscape — highly fertile and also a critical buffer to the Kilombero Nature Reserve.”
The foundation is also empowering pastoralist communities to manage livestock and grazing land. Moreover, it highlights the practice of securing financial stability through fishing management.
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Across the nations
Farmers in Burkina Faso and Niger are deploying water-harvesting techniques, including building stone lines and improved planting pits. As a result, rainfall is being trapped on crop fields, causing the average cereal yields to rise from 400 to 900 kilograms per hectare (kg/ha), or even more.
Alongside this initiative, adding small quantities of fertilizer directly to seeded crops or young shoots early in the rainy season can optimise these techniques. Combined with motives such as water harvesting has bolstered millet and sorghum yields from fewer than 500 kg/ha to up to 1,500 kg/ha.
Another example of sustainable practices can be found in Malwai, where agricultural workers are planting Faidherbia albida trees on fields using small amounts of fertilizer. These trees offer shade and pack nitrogen in the soil. Subsequently, stakeholders have noticed their maize crop yields increase from fewer than two tons per hectare to three and four tons per hectare.
In West Africa, farmers are implementing integrated soil fertility management by “applying crop resides, compost, mulch, livestock manure, leaves, and fertilizer.”
The World Resources Institute shares:
“These practices help farmers meet the nutrient needs of the crop while restoring soil organic matter and overall soil fertility, which contributes to sustainable intensification of crop production. Integrated soil fertility management across more than 200,000 hectares resulted in crop yield increases of 33-58% over a four-year period. Farmers also saw revenue increases of 179% from maize and 50% from cassava and cowpea.”
A critical time
Altogether, sustainable, and regenerative agriculture can help increase Africa's food production in this era of high demand. Regenerative techniques avoid highly industrialised agriculture production that affects soil health, such as the drying of water resources and high levels of chemical and hormonal residue levels in crops.
An agriculture production system that may lower or even deliver a net positive environmental impact would do wonders for the land, economy, and society.