‘Decline in soil fertility, threat to food security’
By Edmund
Smith-Asante, ACCRA
Mr Shashidhara Kolavalli (left) addressing the media |
Soil
fertility, particularly in the northern parts of the country, is steadily
declining, thus raising concern for national food security.
“Current
agricultural practices ‘mine’ soil nutrients in the sense that nutrients
extracted from soils through crops are not adequately replenished,” he stated.
The
senior fellow was addressing selected journalists on soil fertility management
and fertiliser subsidies to Ghanaian farmers.
Mr
Kolavalli informed the journalists of the arrival of a team of 10 experts in
the country to offer recommendations to the government on how to solve
challenges associated with offering fertiliser subsidies to farmers.
He
expressed the hope that the team’s exchanges with stakeholders and policy
makers would enable the government to structure policies that would address the
issues of soil fertility management and fertiliser supply.
Why fertiliser subsidies
Following
significant increases in world food and fertiliser prices, Ghana and a number
of other countries began to subsidise inorganic fertilisers in 2008.
The aim
was to encourage fertiliser use and also offer uniform prices of the product
across the country.
However,
the cost of subsidies and the quantity of fertilisers attracting subsidies have
increased tremendously over the years.
Available
figures show that a total of GH¢862.39 million was spent on subsidies between
2008 and 2011 by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and COCOBOD.
Meanwhile,
the MOFA fertiliser subsidy bill is projected to rise to GH¢136 million and
account for over 35 per cent of its budget in 2020.
Soil fertility management
Although
inorganic fertiliser was required to replace lost nutrients, Mr Kolavalli said
differences in soil characteristics such as active soil organic carbon,
micronutrients and acidity might depress crop response to inorganic fertiliser.
“The
evidence is increasingly indicating that crop response to fertiliser can be
significantly constrained by farmers’ inability to manage and augment their
soils over time.”
Mr
Kolavalli noted that, “Chemical fertiliser has a role but we cannot just focus
on it as the panacea to solving soil fertility problems.”
Even
though organic fertiliser was another option to employ in ensuring soil
fertility, he said the problem of that option was its limited supply and that
COCOBOD was only able to supply 220,000 bags of organic fertiliser in 2014.
Writer’s
email: edmund.asante@graphic.com.gh
This story was first published by the Daily Graphic on February 2, 2015
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