By Obiabin Onukwugha
Climate change and fertilizers are driving hunger as the African continent struggles to feed itself.
According to the African Development Bank, Africa has 65% of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land but spends about $60 billion annually to import food. This spending is estimated to jump to $110 billion by 2025 due to increased demand and changing consumption habits.
Climate change is a major threat to farming systems in Africa, through irregular rainfall patterns to droughts, desertification and flooding.
These changes are leading farmers to look for new farming and animal husbandry techniques, as genetically modified crops (GMOs) and fertilizers have also been introduced in a bid to achieve solve hunger problems and achieve greater crop.
But over the years it has been found that these solutions have not solved the hunger problems across Africa, rather it is eroding traditional seeds and soil nutrients.
In Kenya, farmers have cried out that excess use of fertilisers have drastically reduced their harvest there posing threats to the country’s food security.
Asides, Kenya has a predominantly low-lying coastline and surrounding islands that are at risk from sea level rise.
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The Food and Agriculture Organization, reported that the production of maize in Kenya, declined by 4% to 44 million tons in 2022.
A farmer, Benson Wanjala, lamented that his 10-acre farm which produced a bountiful harvest of 200 bags of maize about twenty five years ago has now dwindled to a meagre 30 bag per annum.
He said his once fertile soil has become a nearly lifeless field that no longer earns him a living.
Like many farmers, he blames the situation on acidifying fertilizers pushed into Kenya and other African countries in recent years. He said he started using the fertilizers to boost his yield and it worked, until it didn’t work again.
Kenya’s government first introduced a fertilizer subsidy in 2008, making chemical fertilizers more accessible for smaller-scale farmers.
In May, Kenya hosted an Africa-wide soil health summit to discuss declining production, climate change and other issues that have increased food security concerns.
At the summit, Stephen Muchiri, executive director of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, advocated for a return to traditional farming practices to replenish lifeless soils, including planting a variety of crops and doing as little as possible to disturb the land.
He said: “Inorganic fertilizers were never meant to be the foundation of crop production. Commercially inclined farming, our soils are now poor, acidic, and low in biomass resources, and without life!”
He said farmers should rotate crops on their land and source compost material from livestock such as goats: “There must be some kind of transition and adaptation for our soils to revert back to fertility,” he added.
