Healthy Farms Need Focus on Biodiversity over Fertilizers, Researchers Say

Scientists from the World Agroforestry Centre report that farmers in Africa must avoid over dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides to increase overall food production, a key step in ensuring Africans have enough to eat.

Additionally, getting more food out of the same amount of land by practicing agricultural intensification is seen as the best long-term solution to perennial food shortages in Africa.

The World Agroforestry Centre, which was formerly known as the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry, and still uses the acronym ICRAF, reports that crop production in Africa is seriously hampered by degradation of soil quality, water shortages and a lack of biodiversity of crops.

"Currently, yields for important cereals such as maize have stagnated at 1 tone per hectare," ICRAF reported. "Climate change and increasing demand for food, animal fodder and fuel is likely to worsen the situation."

Through agricultural intensification - the incorporation of trees and shrubs with crops and livestock on farms - ecosystems, agriculture and livelihoods can be brought together, ICRAF reports. Doing so will replenish soils, improve biodiversity and lessen agricultural pollution, the researchers said.

Improving the quality of farmland without using chemical fertilizers is key to preserve soil quality and biodiversity, as well as lowering pollution. Ensuring a healthy environment for agriculture will ensure food security and healthy incomes earned from farming, the researchers said.

"While growing more food on the same area of land is key to increasing sustainable food production and meeting the needs of an ever-growing population, farmers should avoid intensification that relies on heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides," the ICRAF said. "Chemical fertilizers increase production in the short-term, but with time soils become increasingly degraded and broken down until there is very little organic matter or nutrients left. When soils are in this state, crops are unable to utilize the fertilizer and production is low."

Sammy Carsan, a tree domestication scientist with ICRAF, said lessening dependence on chemical fertilizers was key for long-term agricultural success for African farmers.

"A long-term solution to intensification in Africa should not purely be based on an imported intensification model but instead consider approaches that can maintain the quality of the available resource base through ensuring nutrient cycling, organic matter build-up, biodiversity improvements and water quality regulation," Carsan said.