Fertilizer application without soil test threatens food security, warns Prof Chude

The National President, Soil Science Society of Nigeria (SSSN), Prof. Victor Chude

The immediate past President of the Soil Science Society of Nigeria, and Registrar of the Nigerian Institute of Soil Science, Prof. Victor Chude, has warned that Nigeria risked not attaining food security as long as her citizenry continued to treat the soil with levity and unless the mode of application of fertilizer to crops was changed, the country would continue producing below quantity needed for self-sufficiency.He said this at the maiden summit of the Agriculture Correspondents Association of Nigeria (ACAN), held in Abuja, recently.

He lamented that despite the abundance of land there had been low crop yields across the country as a result of unregulated use of fertilizer and disregard for the soil.

He explained that fertilizers NPK 15: 15: 15 or NPK 20: 10: 10., for example, were not meant for all soils, and that the present trend whereby the same type of fertilizer was supplied to farmers across the country was counter-productive and should be stopped, adding that every state should be supplied fertilizer that suits its soil as shown on the Soil Science Society of Nigeria’s soil mapping.

The professor used the opportunity to call on the relevant government institutions, stakeholders to approach the society or conduct soil test and mapping before fertilizers are given out to farmers.

Said he, “soil is the cradle of civilization: It supports life and it is life. Any nation that refuses to manage soil well will definitely go underground with time. We need a lot of resources to make it productive. If we continue with what we are doing now, quote me, that is, using one type of fertilizer across the country, we will continue to have low yields and we cannot achieve food security. We will only be destroying the soil because our soil already has potassium.”

 He noted that farmers have remained in poverty because for the past four decades, the yield of crops had not appreciated so much because the soil had not been taken care of.

He however assured that the present administration has been working assiduously to correct the anomaly in this respect, which necessitated the establishment of Nigerian Institute of Soil Science recently by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

He stressed the use of targeted fertilizers by farmers to guarantee increased productivity, only after soil mapping must have been carried out.