How to use inorganic fertilisers

What you need to know:

  • They are the natural source of soil nutrients. They comprise of farmyard manures like cow dung, animal urine, cattle beddings, composite, and organic mulches.

Back in 2016, a summit which attracted some one thousand and one hundred participants from across Africa took place in Abuja, Nigeria.

It was known as the African Fertiliser Summit and its major focus was to improve food security, according to a recently published book, “Feeding Africa’s Soils:

Fertilisers to Support Africa’s Agricultural Transformation.” It was a follow up to an earlier summit held in Maputo, Mozambique, in 2003 which was about speeding up Africa’s agricultural growth.

In Abuja delegates mainly debated and recommended increased usage of inorganic fertilisers in African countries as one of the efforts to achieve the African Green Revolution. At the summit the countries committed to increase inorganic fertiliser use from the average of 8 kg of fertiliser per hectare to 50 kg per hectare.

As was mentioned in this column last week, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has observed that usage of inorganic fertiliser across Africa is still below the 2006 Abuja Declaration of applying 50 kg per hectare against a global average of 150kg and it calls for increased application.

However all farmers intending to use inorganic fertilisers are advised to do so judiciously and to have the soil in their gardens tested for missing nutrients by agricultural services extension workers before they apply them. Manufactured fertilisers contain nutrients in high and definite concentrations.

Anyone using them must be well instructed in their application just to ensure that the right amount is used and at the right time. It is no use blindly purchasing particular fertilisers on the basis that they have caused high yields on the farm of someone else’s farm twenty kilometres away.

That farm’s soil nutrients status may be very different from yours. Some fertilisers are manufactured for particular crops whose nutrient requirements are different.

They must however continue using organic fertilisers because they are useful in improving soil fertility even if they cannot supply all the required nutrients, especially for large scale farmers.

They are the natural source of soil nutrients. They comprise of farmyard manures like cow dung, animal urine, cattle beddings, composite, and organic mulches.
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