Soil Fertility and Hunger in Africa

By P. Sánchez. Science, 2002

1,314 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8e076cc26a432ca104dbcb592814405264817363

How researchers see this paper

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. D. Garrity
2. Olu Ajayi
3. G. Sileshi
4. F. Akinnifesi
5. T. Gomiero
6. Arjen Y. Hoekstra
7. Elina Andersson
8. J. Lynch

Citations in the corpus

• Soil Degradation, Land Scarcity and Food Security: Reviewing a Complex Challenge (2016, background): “Adopting agro-ecological and low input practices may allow us to preserve soil health while still increasing overall farm productivity, for example by adopting a more complex multi-cropping strategy [47,101,120,123,222,223].”
• Termite damage to maize grown in agroforestry systems, traditional fallows and monoculture on nitrogen‐limited soils in eastern Zambia (2005, background): “In parts of Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa, 20–30% of preharvest loss in maize is due to termites (Wilson, 1972; Nkunika, 1994; Munthali et al., 1999; Maniania et al., 2002; Riekert & Van den Berg, 2003a,b; Van den Berg & Riekert, 2003).”
• Communicating complexity: Integrated assessment of trade-offs concerning soil fertility management within African farming systems to support innovation and development (2011, background): “Poor soil fertility and the associated nutrient limitations for crop growth are highlighted as pervasive constraints in smallholder farming systems (Buresh et al., 1997; Sanchez, 2002; Sanchez and Swaminathan, 2005).”
• Adoption of renewable soil fertility replenishment technologies in the southern African region: Lessons learnt and the way forward (2007, background): “Declining soil fertility and low macro-nutrient levels are fundamental impediments to agricultural growth and a major negative social externality in sub-Saharan Africa (Vanlauwe and Giller, 2006; Sanchez, 2002).”
• Can carbon sequestration markets benefit low-income producers in semi-arid Africa? Potentials and challenges (2007, background): “Rainfed agriculture and pastoralism are still the main sources of livelihood in the region, and adequate levels of soil organic C content in soils enhance land productivity and food security (Sanchez, 2002; Bationo et al., this issue).”
• REVIEW: Nutrient stripping: the global disparity between food security and soil nutrient stocks (2013, background): “These trace element removals represent an economic problem that can be addressed partially through fertilisation programmes that include trace nutrient applications (Sanchez 2006; Singh 2009).”
• The potential of agroforestry in the provision of sustainable woodfuel in sub-Saharan Africa (2014, background): “Current trends may accelerate forest degradation [18].”
• Legumes: Importance and Constraints to Greater Use (2003, background): “Food security issues, pressure on the land, and increasing soil degradation (Franzluebbers et al., 1998; Cassman, 1999; Sanchez, 2002) have led to increasing research interest in tree-fallow and alleycropping systems for subsistence farmers in Africa and Asia.”
• Does the combined application of organic and mineral nutrient sources influence maize productivity? A meta-analysis (2011, neutral): “This is mainly because of negative soil nutrient balances caused by continuous cultivation with little or no addition of nutrients (Cobo et al. 2010; Sanchez 2002; Smaling et al. 1997).”
• Managing vulnerability to drought and enhancing livelihood resilience in sub-Saharan Africa: Technological, institutional and policy options (2014, background): “Soil nutrient depletion has become one of the major constraints to food security in sub-Saharan Africa because of low crop productivity that causes declining per-capita food production (Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990; Sanchez, 2002).”
• Linkages between Land Management, Land Degradation, and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Uganda (2008, background): “1997; Lynam, Nandwa, and Smaling 1998), and it has particularly affected the land on which the poor depend (Sanchez 2002).”
• Synergistic effect of inorganic N and P fertilizers and organic inputs from Gliricidia sepium on productivity of intercropped maize in Southern Malawi (2007, background): “Central to this widespread hunger and malnutrition situation is the critical question of Africa’s deteriorating soils, and this has been widely recognized as a major factor affecting productivity of smallholder farms (Sanchez et al. 1997; Sanchez 2002; Smaling et al. 1997).”
• The State of Soil Degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Baselines, Trajectories, and Solutions (2015, background): “In this review, we will focus on soil degradation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where declines in crop productivity have been linked to hunger and poverty [1,2].”