The National Agriculture Campaign (2018-2019) was officially\u00a0 launched in Lome by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.\u00a0 This is a move that need to be appreciated by all of us. Agriculture is the backbone of our economy and is the main employer in rural communities.<\/p>\n
Farmers\u00a0 need fertilizer to increase farm productivity.\u00a0 We commend the idea of providing each farmer 3 bags of fertilizer.\u00a0 Indeed farmers in developed countries enjoy such kind of support from their governments.\u00a0 It is time now that we provide similar subsidies to our farmers.\u00a0 We need to produce enough food for ourselves in order to avoid hunger and mulnutrition,\u00a0 use of our meagre foreign reserves to import food or be dependent\u00a0 of foreign\u00a0 foods.<\/p>\n
Though we commend the government\u00a0 for this action there are concerns\u00a0 that need to be taken into account.<\/p>\n
First concern\u00a0 is the fact that farm productivity\u00a0 does not depend on fertilizer alone.\u00a0 A farmer can have enough fertilizer\u00a0 but still fail to increase farm yields due to other factors.\u00a0 For example, yields depend on the knowledge\u00a0 of the farmer on fertilizer application.\u00a0 Improper application\u00a0 of fertilizer can have no effect or in severe cases reduce instead of increasing yields. Fertilizer has to be applied at correct rates and times.\u00a0 How many of our farmers\u00a0 know about this? Will the farmers receive fertilizer in time?\u00a0 Do we have enough extension officers in rural areas to assist these farmers?\u00a0 If not this free fertilizer may not achieve the intended results.<\/p>\n
Second,\u00a0 due to bureaucracy and corruption has the ministry put in place a system that will ensure farmers receive the fertilizer?\u00a0 Is there a system that will ensure farmers receive it without any charge?\u00a0 Will the distribution be fair to all farmers? If the Ministry has no such systems in place the support may end up in wrong hands or will benefit those who are not targeted by the government.<\/p>\n
Third,\u00a0 is the issue of sustainability of the support.\u00a0 Will this kind of support be sustained for at least 10 years or is it a 1 season support?\u00a0 Has the ministry sustainability plan?<\/p>\n
Fourth,\u00a0 apart from fertilizer does the ministry consider other important\u00a0 issues such as irrigation,\u00a0 mechanization, storage, transportation\u00a0 and marketing?<\/p>\n
We know there are some NGOs and individuals who may criticize this government\u00a0 support based on their perceptions; in particular on their perceptions about organic or ecological agriculture.\u00a0 Due to limited knowledge in Agronomy\u00a0 they will think provision of NPK and Urea is bad to agriculture.\u00a0 This is not true.\u00a0 NPK (Nitrogen,\u00a0 Phosphorus\u00a0 and Potassium)\u00a0 are needed for plant growth.\u00a0 NPK can be available\u00a0 naturally or manufactured industrially.\u00a0 The truth is our soils do not have sufficient\u00a0 amounts of natural NPK.\u00a0 Farmers are forced to add industrialli manufactured NPK otherwise they will produce less and become more poorer.\u00a0 The only possible argument is that:do we have proper soil analysis to guide our farmers when adding NPK?\u00a0 Adding more than necessary\u00a0 is also harmful.\u00a0 It can destroy the soil structure,\u00a0 texture and composition.\u00a0 So providing industrial NPK to farmers is not as bad as many would like all of us to believe.\u00a0 The only problem is we do not have good soil fertility maps to guide farmers.<\/p>\n
Organic farming where manure and compost are the main fertlizers is good.\u00a0 But one must know that there are many farming communities that do not keep livestock.\u00a0 Neither do they have enough quantities of materials to produce compost.\u00a0 One should also know that for 1 hectare a farmer need 4 tonnes of farm yard manure in order to get recommended\u00a0 amount of Nitrogen.\u00a0 How many farmers can collect 4 tones of manure in our rural communities?\u00a0 How much work and time is needed for that task alone?<\/p>\n
Another factor that one need to consider is that organic farming is not only about using manure or compost.\u00a0 You need consumers who are willing to buy organic products.\u00a0 In Africa such consumers do not exist.\u00a0 Consumer buy the cheapest not the safest food product in the market.\u00a0 You also need a special government support to offset crop losses for at least 10 seasons.\u00a0 Organic farmers in the EU enjoyed this support.\u00a0 The government\u00a0 pay the farmer to become organic.\u00a0 In Africa governments do not provide this support.\u00a0 Therefore encouraging a rural African farmer to produce organically is similar to asking him or her to sign his or her own death warrant!\u00a0 She or he has no market advantage over a normal farmer neither is his or her government providing him or her a special subsidy to offset crop losses.<\/p>\n
We are not saying organic or ecological farming is bad but in the current situation it cannot work in many rural areas of Africa.\u00a0 We need to sensitive consumers and the government\u00a0 has to give them special financial support.<\/p>\n
For more info or debate contact<\/p>\n
Dr.\u00a0 Yahya MSANGI<\/p>\n
International\u00a0 Tech Adviser<\/p>\n
ECO CONSCIENCE TV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Agriculture Campaign (2018-2019) was officially\u00a0 launched in Lome by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.\u00a0 This is a move that need to be appreciated by all of us. Agriculture is the backbone of our economy and is the main employer in rural communities. Farmers\u00a0 need fertilizer to increase farm productivity.\u00a0 We commend the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ec_post_video":""},"categories":[372],"tags":[728,1324,1322,676,1326,1328],"odd":[647,627],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5740,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions\/5740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/5725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5723"},{"taxonomy":"odd","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoconscience.tv\/api\/wp\/v2\/odd?post=5723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}