NAIROBI, Kenya– When Benson Wanjala started farming in his village in western Kenya twenty-five years ago, his 10-acre farm could produce a bountiful harvest of 200 bags of maize. Today, that number has dropped to 30. He says his once fertile soil has become a near-lifeless field that no longer provides him with a living.
Like many other farmers, he blames the acidifying fertilizers promoted in Kenya and other African countries in recent years. He says he started using them to boost his yields and it worked… until it didn’t. The Kenyan government first introduced a fertilizer subsidy in 2008, making chemical fertilizers more accessible to smallholder farmers.
About 63% of Kenya’s arable land is now acidic, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, leading to a decline in the production of staples such as maize and key exports of horticultural products and tea. Maize production fell by 4% to 44 million tonnes in 2022, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which did not specify why.
The agriculture ministry has not responded to questions, especially after the fake fertilizer scandal in April. It turned out that the fertilizer was actually quarry soil in falsely labeled bags that had been distributed to farmers under a national subsidy program. President William Ruto said about 7,000 farmers had bought the fake fertilizer and would be compensated by providing them with the correct product.
Soil health problems are worsening as the African continent struggles to feed itself. Africa has 65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, but spends about $60 billion a year on food imports, according to the African Development Bank. That spending is expected to climb to $110 billion by 2025 due to increased demand and changing consumption habits.
In May, Kenya hosted a pan-African summit on soil health to discuss declining production, climate change and other issues that have heightened food security concerns. Agriculture is a key part of Kenya’s economy, accounting for more than a quarter of GDP.
At the summit, Stephen Muchiri, executive director of the East African Farmers Federation, called for a return to traditional farming practices to replenish lifeless soils, including planting a variety of crops and minimizing disturbance to the land.
“Mineral fertilizers were never meant to be the basis of agricultural production,” he said, later adding that because of “commercial agriculture, our soils are now poor, acidic, poor in biomass resources and lifeless!”
He said farmers should rotate crops on their land and source compost from livestock such as goats: “There has to be some kind of transition and adaptation so that our soils become fertile again.”
Experts say soil acidity causes land degradation by decreasing the availability of plants and essential nutrients, making the soil more vulnerable to structural decline and erosion.
The programme coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, Bridget Mugambe, has called for the phasing out of chemical fertilisers.
“Soil health goes beyond the quick fixes of chemical fertilizers. In fact, chemical fertilizers have seriously damaged our soils in Africa. We need to think about our soils more holistically,” she said.
The African Union’s Soil Health Summit, which in 2006 recommended that members use more chemical fertilizers, adopted a 10-year plan that calls for increased investment to produce organic and chemical fertilizers locally and tripling their use to boost production.
At the summit, AU Commissioner for Agriculture Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko said the continent was “losing more than $4 billion worth of soil nutrients every year.”
Kenya relies heavily on imported fertilizers due to low local production. The main supplier is the European Union, followed by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
John Macharia, Kenya director of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, said the recent fertilizer scandal in Kenya should not discourage farmers.
“It is always imperative that we can work with the government to ensure that the right fertilizers reach our stores,” Macharia said. He recommended using both chemical and organic fertilizers, provided they address the specific soil problem, and said soil analysis would guide farmers.
Deteriorating soil quality is a food security problem across Africa.
In Zimbabwe, once the region’s breadbasket, about 70 percent of the soil is acidic, according to the government. The government has introduced chemical fertilizers in the past to try to strengthen the soil, but improper use has led to a decline in organic matter.
“Before the introduction of mineral fertilizers, our ancestors knew and understood that by adding organic manure, the soil became fertile and crops yielded better results,” said Wonder Ngezimana, associate professor of crop sciences at the Marondera University of Agricultural Science and Technology in Zimbabwe. “This is a traditional norm in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa, where people look for any kind of organic matter to add to the soil.”
These include animal manure, grass, leaves and twigs, crop residues, ash and compost. But many farmers in Zimbabwe no longer have livestock because of the recent drought, Ngezimana said: “Farmers are struggling to maintain soil health because they cannot produce enough organic matter.”
AGRA recommended that farmers test their soil for acidity and apply lime to reverse high acidity.
But farmers find both methods limited and expensive. Soil testing services are available from government agricultural agencies, public universities and private organizations for $20 to $40.
Wanjala, the farmer, said he could not even find the money to buy livestock, manure and barely seeds.
“I can’t afford more expenses,” he said.
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Farai Mutsaka in Harare, Zimbabwe, contributed to this report.
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