CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

 1.1 Background Information

According to the United Nation report (1984), Land-use management is the world’s most important environmental and productivity problem. Land degradation, especially soil erosion, soil nutrient depletion and soil moisture stress, is a major problem confronting many African countries (13th International Soil Conservation Organisation Conference (ISCO), 2004).

Environmental degradation in National, State and Community levels in Nigeria is now a critical issue posing serious threats to the populace (Ezemonye, 2007). The major processes of land degradation are physical (in the form of soil erosion, compaction, and crusting and iron pan formation) (Kathleen, 1993). In Nigeria, one of the most serious problems of land-management is soil erosion. Soil erosion constitutes one of the greatest environmental and productivity problems, causing an estimated 30 million tonnes of soil loss annually. Although erosion is a natural process human land use policies also have an effect on erosion, especially industrial agriculture, deforestation, and urban sprawl (Montogomery, 2008, Kotke, 2007). Most of the severe and frightening soil erosion problems and catastrophes in Nigeria are found in many parts of South Eastern region where population densities and resource pressure in these parts rank among the highest in rural Africa. There have been several reports on this ravaging situation in the Southeast, “the conditions, under which our kith and kin have to make their daily living in Nigeria, are hellish and inhuman,” (Orabuchi, 2006).

Soil degradation is a serious problem in Nigeria (World Bank, 1990). Deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, soil salinization, alkalinization and water-logging, form different but often interrelated aspects of soil degradation (Chukwuemeka Okoye, 2009). In Nigeria, soil degradation affects about 50 million people and leads to the greatest loss of Gross National Product (US $3000 million per year) relative to other environmental Problems (World Bank, 1990). Recent years have witnessed a rise of serious concern about the environmental risks associated with modern agricultural practices. Accelerated soil erosion is one of the major constraints to agricultural production in many parts of Enugu State. Therefore, sustainable and renewed resource management practices need address the widespread land degradation,

declining soil fertility, unreliable rainfall and even desertification, in a context of global climate change (Rezvanfer, Samiee & Faham, 2009). Similarly, such biological and mechanical soil conservation practices are currently applied by farmers in Enugu State, including; mulching, cover crops cultivation, terracing, integrated cropping and timely use of fertilizers.

Soil conservation refers to the use of measures to protect the soil, the aim of maintaining or improving its natural fertility (FAO, 2001). Soil conservation also refers to a temporary or permanent increase in the productive capacity of the land or its potential for environmental management. In economic terms, “productive capacity” is the attainable annual output of product yield, natural vegetation and water flow, at a fixed level of non-land inputs. Conservation Agriculture (CA) ( sometimes referred to as “agricultural environmental management”), can be defined as “a concept for resource-saving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profits together with high and sustained production levels while concurrently conserving the environment” (FAO, 2007). At the same time conservation is the use of resources in a manner that safely maintains a resource that can be used by humans. Conservation has become critical on the fact that the world population has increased over the years and more food needs to be produced every year (FAO, 2007).

Conservation agriculture (CA) aims to achieve sustainable and profitable agriculture and subsequently aims at improved livelihoods of farmers through the application of the three CA principles: minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotations. Conservation agriculture holds tremendous potential for all sizes of farms and agro-ecological systems, but its adoption is perhaps most urgently required by smallholder farmers, especially those facing acute labour shortages. It is a way to combine profitable agricultural production with environmental concerns and sustainability and it has been proven to work in a variety of agro ecological zones and farming systems. Conservation agriculture has been perceived by practitioners as a valid tool for Sustainable Land Management (SLM). It is because of this promise that Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) is actively involved in promoting CA, especially in developing and emerging economies (FAO, 2010).

Many traditional farming systems in Africa have characteristics closely resembling CA systems. Tillage is often limited to planting in holes, mulching is practiced (using weeds, crop residues, grasses or green manure), as is direct planting with a hand hoe and a wide diversity of crops and trees are grown. In many commercial agricultural exploitations, conservation (or reduced) tillage and direct planting, combined with the application of herbicides has been widely practiced in Eastern and Southern Africa for some time (Biamah, 2000). In Zimbabwe for example, about 75% of the commercial farmers practice some form of conservation tillage. One of the first “No Till Clubs” was formed by a group of commercial farmers in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa back in the 1970s (Fowler, 2002). Cover crops have been the subject of research for many years, as have more suitable crop rotations and ways to better integrate crop and livestock production. However, the impact and the practice of these techniques by smallholder farmers in Africa are still very limited.

Increasingly, labour shortages are seriously affecting the availability of farm labour in Africa. In many countries, the rural population is steadily being reduced through migration to urban centres. This particularly concerns the younger male population, meaning that those with the best potential for heavy physical work are no longer working on the land. The situation is being further aggravated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic that is so tragically striking many parts of the African continent. As a result, many African households are now headed by women who are experiencing tremendous pressure as they have to not only care for the household and family, but run all the farm operations at the same time. For these and other reasons, it is now becoming even more essential that farming methods that conserve resources, reduce human labour requirements and significantly improve food security be adopted (Benites, Ashburner & Theodor, 2002).