2015 is International Year of Soils.
Some areas of Africa have seen agricultural productivity decline by 50% due to erosion and desertification. If productivity is ever to go up, we may need to start by looking down: at the soil, reports the Guardian.
“Around 65-70% of arable land in Africa is degraded in one form or another,” he says. “Farmers are on average getting a tonne of maize from a hectare of land, where a similar size plot in Asia gets three tonnes per hectare. Soils have been cultivated for many years with little or no inputs, and this is compounded by problems of erosion. So the challenge is how to replenish soil and mitigate degradation.”
Read full article: 2015 International Year of the Soils.
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