Poor soil fertility emanating from land degradation is one of the causes of low crop productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, the issues of food insecurity and poverty have become prevalent in these countries. It is however imperative to explore agricultural innovations such as mineral fertilizer to improve soil fertility of the arable lands in Africa including Nigeria
Fertilizers are substances that add nutrients to the soil to promote soil fertility and increase plant growth. The three most important fertilizers include nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. The latter two have been available for centuries, but getting nitrogen in a form that plants could absorb is scarce, and the lack of nitrogen has led to low crop yields for centuries.
Fertilizers replace the nutrients that crops remove from the soil. Without the addition of fertilizers, crop yields and agricultural productivity would be significantly reduced. To grow healthy crops full of nutrients, farmers need to ensure they have healthy soil.
Without fertilizers, nature struggles to replenish the nutrients in the soil. When crops are harvested, important nutrients are removed from the soil, because they follow the crop and end up at the dinner table. If the soil is not replenished with nutrients through fertilizing, crop yields will deteriorate over time.
The International Fertilizer Association (IFA) estimates that 85 per cent of the soils globally are deficient in nitrogen, 73 per cent are deficient in phosphorus, while 55 per cent lack potassium.
In sub-Saharan Africa, where hunger and starvation have long been a threat, lack of fertilizer is a primary reason agricultural yields lag the rest of the world, especially as the combination of high prices and shortages forces some farmers to revert to older methods of fertilization. These challenges have stifled agricultural productivity affecting the sector’s contribution to the country’s GDP as well as increased food imports due population rise hence declining levels of food sufficiency. For instance, between 2016 and 2019 Nigeria’s cumulative agricultural imports stood at N3.35 trillion, four times higher than the agricultural export of N803 billion within the same period.
Through Project Farm2Life, The Wishwall Foundation will be giving free fertilizers to 35 rural farmers from 3 communities to help increase their crop yield this farming session. The distribution of fertilizers in Jos East, Plateau State will significantly help farmers crop yield which will help them earn higher and be able to take care of their families.
Fertilizers will be distributed to farmers to prepare their land for the farming session and also in-between to help with massive crop yield.
For more information on Project Farm2Life, visit http://thewishwall.org/the-wishwall-foundation/ , IG: @thewishwallfoundation
About the Wishwall foundation: The Wishwall Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization and social community. The Foundation is built on the “pay it forward” philosophy. Its core principals are to give a voice to the voiceless and to help make meaningful wishes come true. The Wishwall Foundation is multi-faceted. It consists of The Wishwall Online and The Wishwall in Every City, where people can express their wishes and where the Foundation inspires them to help each other and grant those dreams that are more meaningful.
The Wishwall Foundation collaborates with other non-profit groups that promote social integration and the defense of human rights, as well as with companies who wish to sponsor worthy initiatives. The Wishwall Foundation seeks to be a global movement that inspires people and unites humanity through art, fashion, and goodwill.