African leaders are hoping to spur a “Green Revolution” in their countries, similar to that of Asia and Latin America in the 1950’s and 1960’s. They have proposed to eliminate taxes on fertilizer and have introduced a funding mechanism to make fertilizer more affordable to farmers who are often forced to abandon their lands and clear natural vegetation elsewhere because of soil depletion.
“Population pressure now compels farmers to grow crop after crop thereby mining the soil of nutrients,” Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo told heads of state and farming ministers from across Africa at a summit to address the crisis… [I]n Africa, where many farmers cannot afford fertiliser, yields per person have fallen over the last 40 years and experts warn that if soil depletion continues unabated, they will decline by up to 30 percent over the next 15 years. To avoid this, the heads of state pledged to reduce the cost of fertiliser by harmonising taxes and tariffs across the continent by mid-2007…
As things stand, Africans pay up to six times the average world price for their fertilisers because of transport costs. Fertiliser use is negligible and most of it is for cash crops. Subsistence farmers are not replacing the nutrients they harvest along with each successive crop. This means the land eventually becomes barren, forcing farmers to clear new lands for cultivation. Studies show that 70 percent of deforestation in Africa is done by farmers clearing new fields, while soil depletion also accelerates desertification, which affects half of Africa.
Via Environmental News Network