African land ecology: opportunities and constraints for agricultural development.
Compared to other continents, the economic growth performance of Sub-Saharan Africa has been poor over the last four decades. Likewise, progress in agricultural development has been limited and the Green Revolution left Africa almost untouched. The question raised in the literature is whether the poor performance is a question of poor policies or of an unfavorable biophysical environment (policy versus destiny). This paper, with a broad perspective, analyzes adaptation of current land use to environmental conditions in Africa and compares the physical resource base of Africa with Asia. In doing so, we search for unifying principles that can have operational consequences for agricultural development. We argue that some specificities of the natural resource base, namely local homogeneity and spatial diversity of the predominant Basement Complex soils, imply that simple fertilizer strategies may not produce the yield increases obtained elsewhere.
Voortman
Roelf L
RL
Centre for World Food Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. r.l.voortman@sow.vu.nl
Sonneveld
Ben G J S
BG
Keyzer
Michiel A
MA
D000349:Africa; D000383:Agriculture; D003132:Commerce; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004463:Ecology; D004777:Environment; D004787:Environmental Pollution / Q000517:prevention & control; D005308:Fertilizers; D005523:Food Supply; D006801:Humans; D011157:Population Dynamics
D005308:Fertilizers