Add organic fertilizer, lime in AIP-MwAPATA Institute
By Moses Nyirenda
LILONGWE: MwAPATA Institute has emphasized on the need for government through the Ministry of Agriculture to incorporate organic fertilizer and lime in Affordable Input Program (AIP) in order to improve crop productivity in the country.
This comes after MwAPATA Institute conducted a study on the Impact of Integrating Soil Fertility Management Interventions (SFMIS) in Input subsidy Programs (ISPS) on Productivity.
Speaking on the sidelines of the dissemination of the study report which MwAPATA organised on Wednesday in Lilongwe, MwAPATA Institute Research Director, Professor Levison Chiwaula said adding lime and organic fertilizer in the AIP would among other things help to boost the country's maize yield.
"In our research we were looking at what are we going to gain if we introduce organic fertilizer and lime in the AIP and what we have found is that adding organic fertilizer and main agricultural lime to the soils that are acidic will increase significantly the maize yield we are obtaining as a country," Chiwaula said.
He added that adding organic fertilizer and lime in AIP would make crop production to be cost effective saying that with organic fertilizer and lime the benefits are higher than the cost.
He further called upon government and other stakeholders in the agriculture sector to encourage farmers to adopt the use of organic fertilizer.
"We would want to ask government and stakeholders who are working directly with farmers to encourage farmers to adopt the use of organic fertilizer because our soils are very poor.
"We have very low organic matter content in the soils because of practices that we have been using as farmers such as burning the bushes and not burying the refuse, this has left our soils with very low organic matter," he said.
In his comment, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) Soil Scientist, Professor Patson Nalivata also encouraged the adoption of organic fertilizer in order to improve soil usage efficiency by the farmers.
Director in the Department of Land Resources Conservation, Gertrude Kambauwa said as government they are striving to adopting different mechanisms including encouraging the usage of organic fertilizer in order to restore soil efficiency for farming in the country.