Biovision Africa Trust at the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit 2024 (AFSH24)

Biovision Africa Trust (BvAT) participated in the just concluded Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit, held in Nairobi, Kenya from 7-9 May 2024 at the Kenyatta Internatiaonal Confrence Centre ( KICC). The summit deliberated and sought solutions to Africa’s widespread soil quality degradations on our farmlands – a challenge that impacts our agricultural productivity and food security in the long run.

During the event, BvAT under the umbrella of the KCOA and the EOA Initiative and partners FiBL, Pelum Kenya and GBIACK, ran an exhbition booth where we showcased our various interventions in promoting soil health like using bio-fertilisers as opposed to harmful chemical fertilisers. The booth promoted interaction with delegates, learning from our interventions who marvelled at the products and innovations we are promoting to enhance soil health in the continent.

During the summit, BvAT hosted a side event on the second day under the theme; Soil matters, Care for it! on the title; “Agroecological and Organic Farming Systems in Africa– transformation towards System Resilience and Sustainable Production and Consumption” 

BvAT did this through The Knowledge Hub for Organic Agriculture and Agroecology in Eastern Africa (KHEA) and the Ecological Organic Agriculture Initiative (EOA-I), in partnership with the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL).

The side event comprised of two presentations and a panel discussion. Presentations were made by Dr. David Amudavi (BvAT) and Dr. Milka Kiboi (FiBL) looking at the landscapes of agroecology and initiatives in Africa and sharing the findings of the long-term farming systems comparison in the tropics, Kenya – SysCom program respectively.

The panel discussion which was moderated by Ms Venancia Wambua ( BvAT), and had panelists with diverse qualifications and expertise but all relevant to the issues on the table. How do we enhance our soils’ health?

The panelists were; Dr. David Amudavi (ED) BvAT, Dr. Edward Karanja – icipe, Dr. Milka Kiboi – FiBL, Ms Rosinah Menya – Pelum Kenya, Prof. Felix Ngetich – Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University, Dr. Anne Muriuki – KALRO and Albert Kakande – MEMAGO Agroecology (PGS) Group (Uganda).

In his call to action, Dr. Amudavi noted that; “Transforming agricultural systems is not going to be business as ussual. Inorganic solutions have space in agriculture but they are not sustainable. Integration approach and diversifying our enterprises is the best approach”.

He also called for the integration of organic agriculture into conventional agriculture gradually until OA can take over and conventional agriculture is totally dropped. Increasing support to agroecology, investing in research, adopting the value chain approach, enabling farmers to make money from agroecology and finally adopting a systems approach in promotion of Agroecology were some of the success factors that were indentified by the panelists.

Dr. Milka Kiboi from FiBL took the audience through the long term field trials that FiBL is spearheading and proved that, in the long run, organic agriculture has shown to increase productivity and sustain the environment. An impact that may not be evident at the onset of organic farming.

On the other hand, Dr. Anne Muriuki from KALRO took the audience through hudles that are impeding the adoption of agroecology with a series of partinent concerns and questions; bulky nature of organic inputs and their inaccessibility, infancy of research in organic agriculture in africa yet the sector is knowledge intensive, agroecology is a long-term investment and can farmers wait?and who bares the cost? Among many other issues.

BvAT made its contribution to this great event which saw the African Heads of State and Government endorse the Nairobi Declaration on Fertilizer and Soil Health, demonstrating their commitment to restore the nutritional balance of the continent’s soils. A declaration that could see proliferation of usage of biofertilizers.

Prepared by Hudson Were, edited by Venancia Wambua