Soil Nutrition & Fertility Management Project
Soil fertility refers to the ability of soil to provide nutrients to plants which are necessary for their growth and development. A fertile soil is one that contains a balanced supply of all essential plant nutrients as well as micronutrients.
The sugar sub-sector is currently facing a myriad of challenges, key among them being the high cost of production, and declining crop yields among smallholders due to poor crop husbandry and soil management technologies. Sugarcane farmers apply a blanket prescribed inorganic fertilizer regime to soil, regardless of what the actual nutritional requirements are. This has negatively affected the soil quality in the industry and significantly increased the cost of production at the farm level. Acidification of soils, through blanket application of fertilizer has contributed to declining yields and low sugarcane ratoonability, leading to declining enterprise profitability and farmer incomes.
Access by farmers to trusted fertilizer blends,coupled with soil testing services and farmer education are critical in addressing the highlighted challenges. The Sugar Directorate seeks to undertake a project aimed at restoring degraded soils using organic solutions that are not only cheaper, but sustainable, and lighter on the carbon footprint. The concept proposes efficient production and distribution of quality plant nutrition products, supported by effective scientific problem-solving extension systems that, if supported, will revolutionize sugarcane production in the country.
The project seeks to equip small holder farmers with skills to produce and use organic fertilizers, which over time, will restore soil condition and hence improve sugarcane productivity, overall farmer incomes, while taking care of environmental sustainability. This will be achieved through the introduction of bio-fertilizer and microbial inoculant for use in the sugar industry to rehabilitate the degraded soil and meet the rising demand for fertilizer in the country. The bio-fertilizer and inoculant will be produced through value addition of the industrial waste (bagasse and filter-mud).
Through pyrolysis, bagasse will produce bio-char to be mixed with filter-mud to generate 'BIO-mud' an organic fertiliser. A functional prototype of a bio-char production system is already available. The system will be modified to allow continuous production of bio-char for high demand situations. The bio-fertiliser will be applied together with a microbial inoculant produced from elite bacteria strains from the soil and mature filter-mud will be processed as carriers. The blending and application of this products on farms will be informed by results from soil analysis. An ideal business model will be developed for production and distribution of the bio-fertilizer and microbial inoculant. This concept, if supported, will generate at least 2,250 direct jobs for youth in the sugar belt and also mitigate the impact of climate change through carbon sequestration.