Revisiting the 2006 Abuja Fertilizer Declaration with Nitrogen use efficiency and yield-gap lenses

In 2006, the Abuja Fertilizer Declaration was created to bring attention to soil fertility and crop productivity across Africa for food self-sufficiency. The outcome was a recommendation for the increase of fertilizer use from the current practice for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to achieve food sufficiency and improve soil fertility status.

Since then, research on the progress to meet these goals has shown positive fertilizer uptake. However, there is room for improvement in the efficiency of application, for instance, implementing the 4R Nutrient Stewardship – right source, right rate, right time, and right place – that guide farmers to the management practices that help keep nutrients on and in the field.

Mid this year, the Environmental Health and Biodiversity Impact Area Platform (EHBIAP) brought together multidisciplinary experts and scientists at the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, to assess one important aspect of the 2006 Abuja Fertilizer Declaration: Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and yield-gaps.

Nitrogen is a crucial nutrient in soils for agricultural productivity, and NUE is an important metric that measures how well plants use nitrogen for biomass production. Knowing NUE levels greatly helps assess soil degradation and fertilizer performance, aiding farmers in creating sustainable farming and enhancing agricultural productivity.

A case study in the Lake Victoria Basin for maize showed that no farmer has been able to achieve the desired level of NUE. The gap in knowledge and data collection of NUE have hindered optimal care for soils and efficient use of fertilizer nutrients. Hence, more knowledge and capacity sharing would be beneficial between farming communities to find the effective level of management and fertilizer use.

The session came up with policy recommendations to balance the environmental, agronomic, economic, and social dimensions of nitrogen management for soil health.

Key discussion takeaways and calls for action

The main themes of the session that came out were the need for a more evidence-based fertilizer and soil health, and that policy, innovation and capacity are needed for sustainable soil health, environmental sustainability, agricultural productivity, and economic viability of farming for all.

Joseph Gweyi-Onyango, Professor at Kenyatta University, shared about the challenges and opportunities to enhance nitrogen efficiency in cropping systems including employing different types of nitrogen fertilizers to best fit the soil needs.

Joann Whalen, Professor at McGill University encouraged the audience sharing how capacity development can help enhance nitrogen efficiency. This is through sharing bite sized information that is easily understandable, and teaching people how to communicate about fertilizer use and soil health.

Mina Wasti Devkota, Senior Scientist at ICARDA and a farmer, shared policy perspectives such as doing a targeted subsidy program through a public private partnership to help farmers get affordable fertilizer.

Betty Kibaara, Director of the Food Initiative Africa Region Office, spoke about financing needs and how when financial capacity is not there, there will be no way to finance soil sustainability in Africa and for farmers livelihoods.

Sara Mbago-Bhunu, Regional Director of East and Southern Africa Division at the International Fund for Agricultural Development gave closing remarks on the need to focus on regional policy development and national-level implementation actions for fertilizer action plans.

The key action points and calls to action from the panel included:

• Enhance data acquisition and management, foster lifelong learning on soil fertility and soil health, and invest in soil health for fertilizer use efficiency.
• Soil fertility and soil health monitoring and evaluation can be resource-consuming; therefore, there is a need to identify financing mechanisms in support of resource-constrained smallholder farmers.
• It is important to enhance capacity sharing among agriculture actors, including training more students and young professionals in soil health and fertilizer management in the context of the complex market and policy fields.
• It is important to overcome the challenge of blanket fertilizer recommendations, and develop effective tools for site-specific fertilizer recommendations based on soil fertility and taking into consideration the various essential plant nutrients.

As her parting advice, Kibaara shared that, “we need to prioritize listening to farmers who have a lot of knowledge on soil health and the added value of organic farming. Doing so will help manage soil health and nitrogen fertilizer inputs even better.”