World Bank Technical Paper No. 408. This report is a critical review of the technical, economic, and institutional constraints on improving soil fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the actions recommended to address them. Action plans prepared for Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Mali examine the demand for and supply of mineral fertilizers, the exploitation of local mineral resources, the prevention of soil erosion and increasing soil-water retention, and soil fertility management using organic technologies and management practices.

Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds worldwide. These pressures are likely to be substantial across Africa, where countries will have to find innovative ways to boost crop and livestock production to avoid becoming more reliant on imports and food aid. Sustainable agricultural intensification - producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts - represents a solution for millions of African farmers. This volume presents the lessons learned from 40 sustainable agricultural intensification programmes in 20 countries across Africa, commissioned as part of the UK Government's Foresight project. Through detailed case studies, the authors of each chapter examine how to develop productive and sustainable agricultural systems and how to scale up these systems to reach many more millions of people in the future. Themes covered include crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships.

Soil degradation and nutrient depletion have become serious threats to agricultural productivity in Africa. Soils cannot supply the quantities of nutrients required and yield levels decline rapidly once cropping commences. This book addresses these issues and includes papers from an international symposium held at Cotonou, Benin, October 9-12, 2000, organized by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, Nigeria and the Department of Land Management of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. In five main parts it marks the end of a first phase of collaborative research on "Balanced Nutrient Management Systems for the Moist Savanna and Humid Forest Zones of Africa" and concludes with recommendations, providing essential reading for crop and soil scientists.

If you?re an agronomist, horticulturalist, plant and soil scientist, breeder, or soil microbiologist, you?ll want to read Nutrient Use in Crop Production to find everything you need to know about judicious nutrient management and maximizing nutrient utilization in the agricultural landscape. In this book, you?ll discover ways to minimize undesirable nutrient losses and techniques for preserving the environment while meeting the challenges of providing the earth?s increasing population with sufficient food, feed, and fiber to sustain life. Your existing knowledge base concerning this vital area of science will expand and grow as you become more open to the new ideas and applications contained in Nutrient Use in Crop Production. Most importantly, you?ll avoid the narrow scope found in most crop nutrition books and take a broader, more globally minded view of how to maximize nutrient use and minimize nutrient losses in the soil of agricultural systems. Specifically, you?ll find these and other areas covered: population growth, food production, and nutrient requirements managing soil fertility decline the role of nitrogen fixation in crop production delivering fertilizers through seed coatings micronutrient fertilizers the role of nutrient-efficient crops in modern agriculture Feeding the world without depleting the world?s viable soil nutrients is a monumental task--but one that can be achieved, as evidenced in the pages of Nutrient Use in Crop Production. You and your circle of students, professionals, and administrators will benefit greatly from this in-depth view of nutrient use in both developed and non-industrialized counties to give you a better sense of how to allow both the world and the world?s crops to grow.

This book includes twenty-one comprehensive chapters addressing various soil and crop management issues, including modern techniques in enhancing crop production in the era of climate change. There are a few case studies and experimental evidence about these production systems in specific locations. Particular focus is provided on the state-of-the-art of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and precision agriculture, as well as many other recent approaches in ensuring sustainable crop production. This book is useful for undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, and researchers, particularly in the fields of crop science, soil science, and agronomy.