Managing Nutrient Cycles to Sustain Soil Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa

Soil fertility degradation still remains the single most important constraint to food production in sub-Saharan Africa and an efficient cycling of nutrients among crops, animals and soil is crucial to the sustained productivity of the farming systems. Emerging evidence indicate that there is considerable consensus on guiding principles for integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) as the more pragmatic and feasible approach to overcome the limitations of past research approaches. As a holistic approach to research on soil fertility, ISFM embraces responses to the full range of driving factors and consequences, namely biological, physical, chemical, social, economic and political aspects of soil fertility decline. The approach encompasses nutrient deficiencies, inappropriate germplasm and cropping system design, pest-disease interaction with soil fertility, linkage between land degradation and poverty and global policies, incentives as well as institutional failures. Such long-term soil fertility management strategy requires an