Alleviating Soil Fertility Constraints to Increased Crop Production in West Africa pp 19-32 | Cite as
Alleviating fertilizer technology transfer constraints
Abstract
The continuing trend of declining per capita output in sub-Saharan Africa poses formidable challenges to those involved in agricultural development in this complex region. Smallholders comprise 75 percent of the major food production units and up to now have generally produced sufficient food from traditional production systems that rely on extended fallows and abundant availability of land. Population pressures are now forcing many traditional farmers to intensify production through the reduction of fallow periods and cultivation of marginal lands. Some improved technologies for small-scale food production have been developed over the past twenty years but these technologies have not been adopted by the vast majority of smallholders. During the eighties, there has been increased study and analysis of food crop agriculture in the region.
There has been increased investment at national levels in agricultural research vis a vis agricultural extension and it has been concluded that linkages between research and extension are poor. Research output, in terms of the technologies generated, has often not been appropriate in terms of the needs of farmers and it had been concluded that extension services are generally unable to transfer the available output to farmers. Despite the general scale and complexity of the problems in food crop technology generation and transfer in the region, there are examples of projects in the eighties that have been very successful in the transfer of improved technologies to farmers. There are major lessons in technology transfer from projects that involved the successful adoption of fertilizer-based production technologies in specific regions of individual countries such as Ghana, Cameroon, Togo and Nigeria. On the national large-scale level, the experiences of the Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services in Nigeria provide firm evidence of how well-planned extension programs can harness new methodologies and communication technologies to ensure mass adoption of improved food crop technologies by farmers.
There is a need to examine how new information and communications technologies, such as desktop publishing and video, can be harnessed to improve the communication skills of field extension personnel and consequently their efficiency and impact with farmers. Training programs that involve the combined inputs of regional specialists in technology transfer, national extension personnel and agricultural communications specialists are recommended for in-country implementation. These programs aim to develop the skills of field personnel to produce and use extension support materials that translate and communicate improved food crop technologies into meaningful messages for farmers. IFDC-Africa plans to pilot the Integrated System for Fertilizer Extension Support (ISFES) at national levels.
Keywords
Technology Transfer Extension Service Agricultural Extension Technology Transfer Process Field PersonnelPreview
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