Recognizing Vital Role of Healthy Soils in African Agriculture and Need to Empower Women in Land Management

As the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit approaches in June 2023, it is important to recognize the vital role that healthy soils play in supporting agricultural productivity, mitigating climate change, and providing ecosystem services, writes Tiwonge Kampondeni.

Despite the Abuja Summit in 2006, African soils continue to degrade, leading to a significant decrease in agricultural productivity.

It is clear that smallholder farmers must be at the forefront of efforts to address soil degradation and improve soil health on the continent.

In the past, smallholder farmers have often been viewed as recipients of development interventions rather than key actors in their design and implementation.

Additionally, the role of women in land management and soil health has not been adequately addressed. Dr Oumou Camara, Vice President of Programs and Projects, and Ms Eva Sanou, Gender Equality & Women Economic Empowerment Specialist at the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), discussed the importance of gender, women's empowerment, and soil health in Africa with us.

What is the relationship between gender and sustainable land management, soil health, and increased agricultural productivity in Africa?

Land management and soil health depend on the agricultural management provided by a piece of land’s occupants; in Africa, this is usually families of smallholder farmers.

It is also known that when it comes to gender, men and women have different societal roles, attributed crops, production purposes (subsistence or commercial), and land management tasks. Although these may vary throughout the continent, the constant that remains is that soil health involves everyone.

To increase productivity we must understand each actor’s (men, women, and youth) contributions and facilitate their access to information and technical and financial skills to produce higher yields in a sustained, resilient, and environmentally friendly manner.

When all roles and genders are visible and recognized for their efforts in production, processes can be improved at each level to adopt best practices for soil and land management. The gender component in this sense is therefore about bringing to light everyone’s efforts and making sure all are remunerated and empowered for and through their contributions to safeguarding healthy soils.

What impact do current policies, interventions, and cultural contexts have on women's ability to implement soil health-enhancing practices?

When it comes to soils and land management, many cultures believe that women should not be exposed to fertilizers and other production inputs due to their toxicity and that land management is not a job for women. Most policies and interventions are, however, more business-based and focused on economic opportunities through input dealing and land handling. Women, men, and youth are said to have the same access to these opportunities and have been led with an inclusive approach to favour their participation.

Disparities are, however, still observed. Lack of access to the right information at the right time combined with low access to adapted financial products has contributed to the disparities between women and men. When all actors are not at the same level of skillsets and information, the risk for counterproductive actions is higher in soil and land management. These have, for the most part, affected more women than men.

In addition, national regulations governing land management and allocation do not, in most cases do not specify the place of women and youth. As a result, some traditions maintain that land belongs to the male heads of households and that women and youth are dependents. As a result, they do not have access to land except through loans or leases and are thus not motivated to fertilize it, knowing that the landowner will benefit from the long-term effects of the fertilizer.

Therefore, the middle ground between cultural context, technological advancements in soil management, and national policies is still a complex equilibrium to find. We should also see these as factors to combine well instead of constraints for interventions on soil health to work for actors (both men and women) as required in main projects and programs.

How can we recognize and support the contributions that women make to improving soil health?

Out of good soil comes nutritious produce. Nutritious produce nourishes and contributes to households’ health and vitality. Strong and energetic human beings can change the world and contribute longer to their families' and communities' economic, social, and environmental well-being. Women are often the gatekeepers to the quality of produce consumed in households and communities.

They are quite involved as well with the production of nutrient-dense produce (namely fruits, vegetables, and oilseeds) as well as food crops such as rice.

We don’t need to reaffirm their roles, but to reinforce their visibility and bargaining power over the right to own land, to learn, act, and earn revenues with best practices for soil management. That way, women can contribute to decisions over sustainable production.

How can we make sure that actions taken after the summit, such as investments in sustainable land and soil management technologies, support and enhance the roles of women in promoting soil health rather than limiting them?

As in all approaches, for a product or service to work and be adopted, it must serve the purpose of making the life of the buyer easier by reducing time, financial, and physical constraints, and/or enhancing gains such as social status, increased health, and empowerment.

In that sense, innovations, investments, and technologies introduced for sustainable soil management should also address women’s constraints for impactful adoption. These interventions should be need-based.

How can we ensure that women farmers have access to and can afford these technologies and innovations?

A proper analysis of cost structure is needed, as well as a review of how flexible and adaptable identified technologies and innovations are to women’s context. It is also important for service providers to be open to offering different schemes (e.g., payments in cash and/or in kind, through credit schemes, Village Savings and Loan Association funding, pay as you go, etc.) as well as to travel or put in place an effective line of distribution to cater to women’s production and soil management needs.

Having women- and youth-led demonstration plots to champion identified technologies and innovations will also boost women farmers’ adoption rates, as confirmed by the following statement from Bineta BA, a woman farmer in Senegal, who said: “I didn’t believe that you could use less fertilizer and get very good yields, which is why I reduced the area planned for the application of the microdose, but when I saw the results after three harvests in one month, I quickly decided to plant and apply the microdose on the whole plot.”

Which key issue related to promoting fertilizer use and soil health on the continent do you hope Heads of State and summit delegates will discuss at next year's summit?

They should discuss “how to help youth become fertilizers and soil health management champions as tomorrow’s leading generation ”