To feed the world’s growing population, farmers need to increase crop yields. Applying more fertilizer could help. But standard versions work inefficiently and often harm the environment. Fortunately, products that are more ecologically sound – controlled-release fertilizers – are available and becoming increasingly …
At an average of 12 kilogrammes per hectare, fertiliser usage in Nigeria and other African countries have been considered low, compared to the global average of 100 kilogrammes per hectare. But, prompted by Africa’s fast-growing population, as well as the increasing awareness that high quality fertiliser is key to increased …
Philanthropist Bill Gates writes:
Whenever I travel to rural parts of the world, the farmers I meet talk about one thing that holds them back: they can’t save their money.
They don’t mean they spend more than they earn. They mean that, literally, they don’t have a safe place to put their …
At the turn of the previous century, German scientists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch got all the credit for finding a way to convert atmospheric nitrogen (in its very stable N2 form) into a charged ion that could be “fixed” or applied as a chemical fertilizer. Both eventually were awarded …
Farmers in seven Districts of the Upper East Region–Bongo, Builsa North, Builsa South, Pusiga, Nabdam, Binduri and Garu-Tempane–are to increase their incomes from legumes cultivation, with the introduction of a new biological fertilizer, simply known as ‘inoculant’.
The inoculant, a product of Ghana’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), its …
The role of agriculture in economic development cannot be overstated. In fact, there seems to be, in the literature of development studies, an overwhelming consensus on the centrality of agriculture in achieving sustainable economic development.
In sub-Saharan Africa, however, policymakers and other stakeholders have, so far, been frustratingly failing to satisfy …
The fertiliser industry has pledged adequate supplies of the commodity during 2018/ 19 farming season after suppliers of raw materials agreed to re-open lines of credit for the sector.
Fertiliser companies have had their raw materials withheld in bonded houses in the country and at the ports as suppliers demanded full …
And it could do it while eliminating herbicides, replenishing topsoil, and reducing carbon consumption. If all goes to plan. Read more …
B4FA Fellow Lominda Afedraru reports:
There is increasing use of processed fertilizer by large scale farmers in the country with the aim of increasing their farm productivity.
Uganda’s smallholder agricultural sector continues to register one of the lowest fertilizer applications in sub-Saharan Africa.
The statistics indicates that Ugandan farmers use 1 to 1.5 …
Two crops or one? Sometimes, growing two crops simultaneously on the same piece of land — called intercropping — can benefit farmers. But it needs careful planning and resource management.
In some parts of Africa, farmers intercrop sorghum — a grain — and peanuts. But they face a major information gap. …
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