African Heads of State and Government formally adopted the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health (AFSH) Summit Declaration, also known as the Nairobi Declaration, during the AFSH Summit. The AFSH Summit addressed the urgent need to improve soil health and enhance fertilizer utilization across the continent to boost agricultural productivity and alleviate hunger and poverty. These priorities were initially identified in the 2006 Abuja Declaration on Fertilizer for the African Green Revolution. The Nairobi Declaration highlights the heavy reliance of African agriculture on cropland expansion for growth which has contributed to slow productivity gains, unsustainable soil management practices, and widespread soil nutrient depletion. For instance, a study by Potapov et al. (2022) indicates that cropland expansion in Africa between 2003 and 2019 was the greatest of all regions globally with an increase of 53.2 Mha, or 34%. The Nairobi Declaration links unsustainable land management practices and associated soil and land degradation challenges to reduced farmer incomes, increased carbon emissions, and enhanced biodiversity loss. It further highlights climate change as a substantial threat to African agriculture’s productivity and sustainability.
Tag: Land degradation
The Imperative for Strengthening Soil Information Systems in Africa: Reflections and Key Insights from Practice [Policy Brief]
Land degradation is a major threat to productivity across the African continent affecting more than 485 million people. Food produced in nutrient-depleted soil lacks available nutrients for the people who eat it, and for most of the 33 million smallholder farms in Africa, growing food in degraded soil is the norm, not the exception. These trends are further exacerbated by the climate crisis. Only through collaborative, cohesive soil health monitoring efforts can AU Member States ensure that interventions are based on evidence to maximize impact. For example, such a monitoring framework can be used to prioritize, track and adapt locally revelant interventions. In turn these data can be used to inform policy and financial investments. This policy brief outlines the case for African policymakers to scale soil information systems (SISs) and integrate them into continental, regional and national policy frameworks.
Company–community partnership outgrower schemes in forestry plantations in Indonesia: an alternative to conventional rehabilitation programmes
Indonesia has a considerable area of degraded land requiring rehabilitation. However, most rehabilitation projects in the past have been government driven, depending on public funding (ndonesian government and international donors), and have focused mainly on technical aspects. As a result people living in surrounding targeted areas are not adopting rehabilitation techniques. Innovative approcahes are necessary if the objectives of a rehabilitation programme are to be met while providing benefits to private companies and local people. The findings of a study of outgrower schemes in Indonesian timber plantations suggested that company–community partnerships could be an alternative for implementing rehabilitation programmes. The partnership arrangement over a 10- to 45- year period is based on a contract. It states the rights and duties of each party in establishing a forestry plantation and the benefit-sharing agreement at the time of harvest. The schemes take place on logged-over forests and idle lands, mostly Imperata grasslands. The partnership provides opportunities for forestry plantation companies to play a social role and rehabilitate degraded resources. It also provides job opportunities to local people and incomes from harvested timber at the end of each rotation under a long-term contract.