January - June 2008 - Kenya Agricultural Research Institute

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Soil Health Program of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) By Jane Wamuongo, KARI Headquarters It is estimated that there are over 69 million smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa who do not have access to effective and affordable farm inputs, appropriate technology and information, and functioning markets. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a partnership that works with African governments, donors, NGOs, the private sector and farmers in Africa to improve productivity and incomes of resource-poor farmers in Africa, aims at improving seed systems, soil fertility, input and output markets. Through the Program for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS) started over a year ago, AGRA has been working with farmers with the aim to increase income, improve food security, and reduce poverty by promoting the development of an efficient, equitable, and sustainable seed delivery system. AGRA has now proposed a fiveyear set of investment strategies to be implemented under the Soil Health Program to a tune of $198 million. The vision of success of the SHP in the first five years: • 6,300,000 ha of farmland is cultivated with the best practices for soil management and improved . • Cereal and/or legume varieties. An additional 187,000 tons of appropriate fertilizer, a 23% increase, are reaching farmers through a network of wholesalers and retailers at a 15% price reduction. • 4,100,000 additional smallholder farmers are utilizing fertilizer through integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) practices to increase their crop yields by 50 to 100%; • AGRA and its partners have developed national and regional policy agendas that will be implemented in 5-8 countries to encourage farmers to adopt ISFM practices and fertilizer; • AGRA has a set of ‘scaling partners’ who can expand effective soil health interventions on a regional basis, a future policy agenda, and a financing alliance and mechanism to achieve continued expansion of ISFM in years six to ten. Dr. Jane W. Wamuongo, KARI Assistant Director for Land & Water Management, Dr. Anthony Esilaba, Program Officer L&WM and Dr. Elkana Nyambati of KARI-Kitale attended a workshop 16-18 June 2008 at the Windsor Country Club that deliberated on the proposed soil health program of AGRA. The objectives of the workshop were to: • inform participants about AGRA in general and Soil Health Program (SHP) • get feed back from country representatives on the proposed SHP • refine the terms of reference for the development of the business plan. Dr. Wamuongo presented the country report at the meeting that highlighted various aspects of the fertilizer industry in the country as follows: Profitability of fertilizer use in Kenya Profitability of fertilizer use has been demostrated through results of the Fertilizer Use Recommendation Project (FURP) conducted in various sites and with different crops in the country in the 1980s. The 32 year old long term trial Participants of the workshop at the Windsor Country Club most of whom will run the proposed soil health program of AGRA Highlighter No. 23 10
(LTT) at KARI-Kabete has also continued to demonstrate yield responses to inorganic, organic fertilizers and their integration. The LTT further offers a range of soil management options that smallholder farmers can choose from depending on their availability and socio-economic factors associated with the different inputs which are likely to differ from one site to the other. Fertilizer demand and supply Food production and soil fertility management in Kenya is mainly undertaken by the small-scale farmers who represent about 85 % of the population and live in the rural areas. However, Kenya’s growth in fertilizer consumption covers both food and cash crops such as tea, coffee, and sugarcane. Fertilizer use rose by 35% over a 10-year period (from 1995 to 2004) while the total consumption rose from a mean of 180,000 in the 1980s to 250,000 t yr -1 in the 1990s and to over 350,000 t yr -1 in the 2004/5 period. The proportion of small farmers using fertilizer varied considerably but generally increased from 10% in the dry lowlands to over 85% in central Province and high rainfall potential zones of the North Rift valley Province. This expanded fertilizer growth is mainly attributed to several factors including: • A relatively stable fertilizer policy since 1990 which has attracted over 10 importers, 500 wholesalers and 7,000 retailers; • A greatly increased network of fertilizer retailers in rural areas that expanded smallholders’ access to fertilizer, reduced transaction costs, and increased the profitability of using fertilizer; • Intense competition in importing and wholesaling; • Relative profitability of the horticulture market (96% of horticultural sales is for the domestic market) thereby raising farmers’ incentives to fertilize maize intercropped with horticultural crops. Potential for local/regional manufacturing and bulk blending Most of fertilizers used in the country are imported with the exception of single super phosphate (SSP) which is manufactured in the country by KEL Chemicals in Thika. The type and quantity of fertilizers used is dictated by the importers who determine what to import based on their own assessment of demand, weather conditions, credit availability and policy environment. There is noted interest in the marketing of raw Minjingu phosphate rock from Tanzania. Potassium has also been noted as an emerging limiting nutrient under continuous cropping. Potassium studies in western Kenya created a need for NPK fertilizers leading one company to produce a NPK blended fertilizer for sale specifically in Kenya (Kanyajua). Role of agro-dealers/private sector To improve food security and achieve desired growth, there is need to put in a public-private partnership framework that will raise awareness of technologies and inputs; improve their use efficiency; lower transactions of supplying inputs; improve linkages between importers, wholesalers and retailers and improve economies of scale in marketing of inputs at wholesale and retail levels. A survey conducted in Kenya indicated that when average distances to nearest fertilizer dealer declined from 8 to 4 kms between 1997 and 2004, the volume, quality and agricultural inputs increased significantly. Sales rose from 125,000 USD in April 2003 to 676,000 in April 2004. The study further showed that the agro-dealers have become important conduits connecting the rural poor with local and multi-national seed, fertilizer and agro-chemical companies. Thus the development of the agro-dealers is critical in accelerating the access of quality inputs to the rural poor Status of fertilizer information There is scarcity of data on the fertilizer use and demand by smallholders, which makes it difficult to assess how much fertilizer is used by small scale farmers compared to commercial farmers. Kenya is currently using an average of 31 kg of fertilizer, which may appear better than most of the other SSA countries. However, it is not clear as to how this amount is partitioned between smallholders and commercial farmers. However, national surveys indicate that fertilizer use by smallholder farmers is on the decline while most have stopped using fertilizers altogether or supplemented them with organic inputs. Evidence indicate that where fertilizers are still in use, the rates of applications are far below those recommended. Human capacity available and needs for research and development The national human capacity involved in soil health is about 500 who are at different levels of education starting from diploma to postgraduate level in agriculture. Most of these are limited to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and the local Universities with few NGOs focusing on soil health. This number is supplemented by others in the development sector from the Ministries of Agriculture and Environment as well as locally based international Centres (CGIARs). Available soil fertility restoration technologies ready for scaling-up Various technologies/strategies can be drawn from the Long Term Trial (LTT) at KARI-Kabete conducted for the last 32 years in addition to various other findings from experimental plots. Government policy on soil fertility management A draft fertilizers policy that identified causes of soil fertility decline and emerging challenges which were transferred into policy objectives was prepared and presented to the Government in 2006. It is also designed to encourage stakeholders to perform their roles in collaboration and enable them access factors of production and apply best management practices. Once passed by Parliament, the policy document will provide guidelines on the way forward for the restoration and maintenance of soil fertility to achieve sustained agricultural production. The Way Forward on the SHP of AGRA AGRA has contracted a team of international consultants to assist in developing a soil health program for Africa. Drs. Esilaba and Nyambati are working with that team to develop the program for Kenya. Highlighter No. 23 11
Page 1 and 2: Highlighter Publication of the Keny
Page 3 and 4: New Agriculture Minister Visits KAR
Page 5 and 6: Case Study When Mr. Pius Makau reti
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January - June 2008 - Kenya Agricultural Research Institute

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