Crop Concerns

Agricultural jobs compose 60 percent of the sub-Saharan African workforce, yet there remains a 30 percent malnourishment rate and lingering questions concerning why so much physical effort produces so little yield.  We can simply attack the current global issues using the easiest, most immediate, and often lackluster, option.  However, these immediate options will not work to rehabilitate farming in sub-Saharan Africa, where famine and poverty remain prevalent problems.  Farmers often implement chemical fertilizers, a common lackluster option, to increase crop production quickly and easily.  But Africa, and all other agriculturally active countries, deserve ongoing research for other more environmentally and economically sound techniques.  The region’s short term use of chemical fertilizers  may drastically improve agricultural production numbers.  However, in the long term, this creates a dependency on methods that were expensive and damaging to the environment.  In addition, the answers cannot simply be black and white; it must also take into account some more deeply rooted issues involving cultural and traditional values.

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Learning organic & sustainable farming methods in Kenya.

On the most basic level, chemical fertilizers are dangerous and not ideal for any area, Africa or elsewhere.  There is a heavy environmental impact looming from the use of these unnatural substances.  In 2001, the World Bank initiated the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in order to more fully analyze what may be ahead of us.  Firstly, these fertilizers are major contaminants in the already-scarce resource that is water.  If they are overly used, the density of the nutrients inside the water sources will likely become much too high.  In short, the life forms such as algae would grow at much faster rates and mess with the current balance of the underwater ecosystem at the expense of its other inhabitants.

But more importantly, since these fertilizers are nitrogen based, there is a large fear of the dramatic rise in fossil fuel emissions.  The vast use of fossil fuel-based products is a controversial topic today in all of its facets, as it is reported by most scientists to cause climate change.  Kenneth Cassmann, environmental health expert of the University of Nebraska, argues with his data that such effects coming from nitrogen are even greater than those as a result of carbon emissions.  This is a very telling statement, because the high amount of carbon emissions already poses a huge global predicament--another issue to discuss on another day.  But with the increased use of a substance more potent like nitrogen, current predictions for climate change could be flat-out incorrect underestimates.  That doesn’t help anyone.

I would be the first to agree that such widespread famine should be attacked from all sides, even if that means some negative side effects.  However, such effects cannot simply be pushed to the side in this case.   Recent studies have shown that the impact of global warming, climate change, and other environmental changes are supposed to be the greatest within the African region.  Based on certain computer models’ data, the future can expect a change in rainfall patterns that will therefore affect food availability in the future and lead to further desertification, glacial melting and deforestation.  Unfortunately, without a lot of foreign aid, sub-Saharan Africa does not hold the financial resources to even attempt to address solutions.  Not to mention, they currently only contribute a mere 4 percent towards total world greenhouse gas emissions!  These present and future realities must be a call to reconsider the true meaning of a short term vs. long term plan.  Frankly, there just is not enough time to contemplate the issue without worsening the environmental situation across the globe, but more severely in Africa: the continent of interest in this case.

But perhaps we are focusing on the wrong aspect of this issue--or rather, ignoring the less-obvious but still heavily-impacting factors in addition to the ones I addressed before.  There is a reason for the ‘culture’ in the word “agriculture.”   Meaning, cultural norms often play a critical part in the overall success or mediocrity of a widespread farming system.  Thus far, activists aim their efforts to boost Africa’s agricultural production mostly towards men, since they are supposedly the “heads of households and the ones best positioned to engage in commercial farming”.  However, not only does this ignore about half the African population, but it also sets aside the fact that it is the women who typically cultivate the food for their families in the sub-Saharan region.  Statistics show that in Ghana, a sub-Saharan nation, women produce 70% of the food crops, make up 52% of the agricultural workforce, and put in 90% of the labour for post-harvest activities.  The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) conducted a study within their own nation, finding “many valuable lessons and promising approaches” that come with gender equality in agriculture.  Knowledge of history tells us that we cannot change culture in a flash, but we must consider this a significant portion of the whole picture before making any single decision.

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Ethiopian farmland.

Although nature.com1proposes that these chemical fertilizers be used only in the short term, current patterns show that this notion is impractical: an empty promise.  The central problem is that implementing chemical fertilizers would cause any society to become dependent upon them, just as our agricultural system has done in the United States.  After all, these “quick and easy” (though expensive and perhaps unhealthy to humans, studies show) solutions may positively affect a massive hunger problem.   But Dr. Robert Watson, the World Bank’s chief scientist, illustrates the pitfall: “We can move in a direction where we destroy our natural heritage or we can move in a direction where we improve both human well being and maintain our natural heritage. We’ve got choices and have to decide which future we want.” As long as the United States and other first world nations attempt to stray from such chemical fertilizers, seeking cheaper, greener and more effective methods, it is only fair that we pay the same respect as we try to help an area that is in such dire need of a sustainable solution.

So even after all this contemplation of the great issue that is sub-Saharan famine, the bleak 30 percent malnourishment rate remains to exist. Troy M. Null of Rollins College sculpts a hopeful idea to us as we consider solid answers to the multiplex topic. “Picture the following scenario: a startup farmer gets a micro loan and insurance to grow native and/or robust crops, using seeds in a backpack that were selected by international research organizations...she could become successful enough to expand, and with fair competition she could sell off her surplus and inspire others to follow in her example.” In the end, the controversy about using chemical fertilizers concerns this--a brighter (or duller) future for sub-Saharan Africa. The choice, in many ways, lies within our hands.


(1) "Food for Thought." Nature 483.510 (2012): n. pag. Nature Publishing Group. Web. 30 Jan. 2013.