Healthy soil is arguably the most important resource for any farmer across the world. Soil health relates to its capacity to support the growth of crops sustainably. Maintaining or restoring soil health however must be a deliberate effort of every farmer.
Cereal Growers Association (CGA) farmer members in different parts of the country as well as Narok have been decrying the diminishing productivity of their soils occasioned mostly by unsustainable practices like discing, over utilisation of inorganic fertilisers that has depleted soil fertility and lead to soil acidification.
CGA has been promoting soil sampling and analysis to its members. However, a vast majority of farmers are unable to conduct the necessary soil analysis, partly due to the high costs involved, and the fear of not being able to implement the findings.
In addition, many farmers don’t understand how soil works and lack basic agronomic skills to be able to understand and critic the recommendations they receive from extensionists, thus making informed decisions.
Aware of these challenges, CGA, in partnership with FERT and the support of the Louis Dreyfus Foundation , has recruited an agronomist, Samuel Njogo, to create awareness and promote agro-ecological practices (AEP), such as use of organic products (bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers) and soil restoration practices.
The action seeks to address climate change and soil degradation related challenges and offer local and sustainable solutions. Knowing soil and plant functioning is a pre-requisite to target and promote relevant and efficient agroecological practices to farmers.In this wake, a training curriculum about soil health understanding and assessment has been developed.
On 30th November 2022, this training was carried-out by CGA agronomist for some key farmer leaders from Narok county and 8 CGA field staff from different counties , aggregated at Paul Koluo farm in Ololulunga, Narok south.
The training was designed to empower farmers to have a broad assessment of their soil by themselves, therefore the session was very practical, through visual observation of different types of soil and simple tests.
By digging a hole in two different soils (one receives only manure compost and the other one is cultivated using inorganic fertilizers), farmers were invited to observe and compare :
- The soil color, smell and its layers according to the depth
- The maize roots development and the presence and the depth of the hard-pan
- The aggregates that determine the soil structure
- The response to sausage test (texture)
- The presence and diversity of living organisms
“With this training, I feel now more able to assess the qualities of different soils, and it helps me to know how to improve the soil health by adding organic matter, using the right fertilisers and pesticides and adopting other agro-ecological practices”. Says Paul Koluo
The farmers admitted it is important to invest in soil health management, like building up the crop residues cover, breaking up the soil hardpan through frequent chiseling and use of organic manure to complement the inorganic fertilizers. However, so far this investment is limited by the lack of knowledge on the topic for most of the farmers.
Another important constraint lies in the land tenure system where renting is on annual basis hence dissuading farmers to invest in long-term effect sustainable practices. A topic of advocacy for CGA.
The next step is now to cascade this training through the field staff and the farmer advisors in the different counties, and complete it with crop functioning training for a comprehensive skills building intervention.
The session started by assessing the levels of understanding of soil by the participants. A discussion thus ensued on what is good soil and how to know whether the soil is healthy or not. To answer some of these questions, the participants were told to collect with their hands soil from 2 different fields, one on which the farmer was using animal manure while the other the farmer has used inorganic manure.
The farmers were to detect simple observable differences between the two soils. The participants also dug a hole that farm that shows the structure of the soil and how the different roots of maize are distributed in the soil. The hole dug was used to conduct basic observatory checks of the soil like the colour, the smell, the size of various particles, the texture and the depth at which different soils were located in the structure. Additionally, the hole was used to check the presence of a hardpan through feeling the resistance to being pricked with a stick.
The participants also had opportunity to understand the various other ways of determining whether the soil was healthy including the type of crops that grow, the number of micro-organisms in the soil, the stickiness to surfaces among others.
Through this training, the farmers got to understand that there are other simple ways of understanding the soil, even before people invest in laboratory-based soil analysis. By the end of the training the participants agreed that they are.