AGRA's Soil Health Program

New life is coming to Africa’s degraded soils. Across the drylands of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger smallholder farmers are combining the use of fertilizer microdosing and techniques such as crop rotation with legumes to improve yields by up to 130 percent. The AGRA-funded program is environmentally sustainable and economically affordable to the hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers who stand to benefit. It is a vivid example of the critical importance of soil health to Africa’s Green Revolution.

Africa’s soils are in trouble. Continuous farming without replenishing soil nutrients has depleted three-quarters of farmland. Without access to fertilizers and organic matter in adequate amounts, farmers’ yields have long stagnated. Thus, restoring soil fertility will allow Africa’s smallholder farmers to grow more food on existing farmland and to protect a vital natural resource.

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