Agricultural sustainability in northern Nigeria
[1] Increasing population results in high food demand among urban and rural dwellers, areas of cultivation, and reduced soil fertility.
[6] In northern Nigeria, research surrounding intensive agricultural practices has been taking place for a number of decades, especially in the Kano Close-Settled Zone.
[7] These traditional practices generally focus on the close integration between the raising of livestock and farming[1] and it is being studied in detail in the Kano Close-Settled Zone of northern Nigeria.
[3] In the nineteenth century, the intensive agriculture carried out in this area of dense population surrounding Kano city was noted by western visitors like Henry Barth.
[1] Due to the social and environmental conditions in northern Nigeria, the flexibility of both ecological management and economic activity are vital components of any strategy for agricultural and rural livelihood in the region.
[1] It is often contended that African farmers are unsuccessful at intensifying agriculture through the use of a method that is environmentally sustainable as well as economically productive.
[5] The pressures of an increasing population (see Figure 2) are understood to cause increasing food demands by urban consumers and rural farmers, the expansion of areas of cultivation, reduced uncultivated land intervals with a lack of inputs necessary to compensate and as a result reduced soil fertility.
[20][21] Traditionally there has been a division between sedentary farmers made up of the Manga and the Hausa people, and the nomadic pastoralists known as Fulani (see Figure 7).
[6] In northern Nigeria, research surrounding intensive agricultural practices has been taking place for a number of decades, especially in the Kano Close-Settled Zone.
In the nineteenth century, the intensive agriculture carried out in this area of dense population surrounding Kano city was noted by western visitors like Henry Barth.
This paradigm shift assumes that larger and more sophisticated farming schemes are more able to produce surplus food in a marketable quantity.
Little attention was given to strategies which may aid the bulk of the farmers in the region, such as improved roads, labor, marketing, and land co-operatives.
[7] This type of development plan is exemplified by the Kano River Project in Kadawa which was built primarily for the production of wheat[Notes 2] in the dry season.
Given the problems, and few realized benefits, associated with this type of agriculture the farmers of this region were quite resistant to these massive changes[7] and the Kano River Project is only a fraction of the extent that was planned.
[22] Furthermore, large scale irrigation projects such as these have a characteristically poor performance record[22] and are often associated with the salinization[Notes 4] of soils.
Intensification has been perceived in technical terms which are very narrowly defined, with an emphasis on machinery, pesticides, and synthetic chemical fertilizers, and where industrial factory production systems replace reliance upon the local ecosystem and local agropastoral (mixed farming) by-products in a labor-intensive process.
Although, they are confined to their pens and fed on cut fodder during the growing season, their bedding and manure are mixed and returned to the fields.
The interrelationship between ecology and economics cannot be underemphasized as in the northern Nigeria there is a long spell of dryness in the dry season and when it is wet, the rains pour.
The ability to leverage on technology is a gamechanger for sustainability in agricultural practices in the North with the availability of accurate data a significant plus.
