Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit Media briefing

 


Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit scheduled for 7th to 9th May at KICC. The convenors include Africa Union, Government officials and Developmental partners. 

Opening remarks by Director of Communications, Ministry of Agriculture. We need to find ways to double productivity of small scale producers. This should be the the aim of the summit. 

Speech by PS, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development.                                        As a country we are proud to be the 2nd AU member state to host the summit. It will be the largest agriculture forum to be held in Africa this year with 3 days of dialogue and learning from experts. Critical decisions will be made that will have far reaching consequences on the African continent. Our hospitality industry will benefit a lot during the duration of the summit. A declaration will be made similar to June 2006 in Abuja to reverse the poor status of African soil. Africa currently falls short of the Abuja declaration so improvement steps ought to be taken. Fertilizer subsidy was aimed at increasing fertilizer usage but so far it hasn't achieved that objective. Development partners, civil society and other relevant stakeholders have a role to play to improve this situation. 

A 10 year action plan will be endorsed in Nairobi to provide a structure for a new policy on soil health and fertilizer. The action plan will be aimed at expanding food production, subsidized fertilizer at half the market price which will be distributed across the country. This should be a major step in solving the food insecurity crisis in our continent. 

Abuja declaration resolved to adopt fertilizer usage but it has not yet achieved the target of 50kg per hectare. Nairobi declaration will be looking into resolving this stalemate. Examples of a few African countries and the usage of fertilizer per hectare:

Angola 5.6 kg per hectare                               Central African Republic 0.2 kg per hectare.    Zimbabwe 26kg per hectare.                            South Africa 104 kg per hectare.                         The above figures show that only South Africa has achieved the target while Angola and CAR have done a very poor performance. 

Meanwhile food secure countries have good examples that we can emulate:                    Germany 130 kg per hectare.                          Canada 161 kg per hectare.                       Indonesia 298 kg per hectare.                           Israel 268 kg per hectare 

Media has a role to play in creating awareness on this issue. We need local solutions for the continent's soil health challenges from farmers, agronomists, civil society and developmental partners. There is also a need for regional cooperation and facilitating cross border trade for essential agricultural development. There is need to triple the production of organic fertilizer. 

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