Authors
Shamie Zingore, R Chikowo, M Pampolino
Publication date
2015
Pages
495-496
Description
Smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) exhibit a high degree of soil fertility heterogeneity, and as consequence, crop productivity and crop yield response to applied nutrients varies considerably across fields (Zingore et al., 2007; Titonell et al., 2008). Sustainable crop production intensification in SSA will largely depend on the development of farm and field-specific nutrient management practices, rather than blanket recommendations across highly diverse farms. Farm typology is a useful tool to explore the wide diversity among smallholder farms to improve targeting of crop production intensification strategies (Chikowo et al., 2014). Key studies on smallholder farm typologies have shown consistent patterns of differences in soil fertility between farm categories, mainly associated with access and use of nutrient resources. Despite advances in the understanding of farm-level soil fertility and socio-economic …