PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Marie K. Thompson
DATE:
November 16, 1999
New IFDC Video
Focuses on Soil Health and Agribusiness Development in Africa,
Bangladesh, and Albania
Muscle Shoals,
Alabama—Poverty is forcing hundreds of millions of farmers in
Sub-Saharan Africa .to "mine" their soil of life-giving
nutrients. A new video documents how organic and mineral fertilizers
can replenish those nutrients and help restore soil health.
To Inherit the
Earth: A Question of Survival was produced by the International
Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), based in Muscle Shoals,
Alabama, U.S.A., and AGCOM International, which specializes in
videos on agriculture and the environment. IFDC helps develop better
agribusiness systems, and conducts research to improve soil health
and, thus, the health of plants and humans they support in
developing countries.
"That gives us
not only the opportunity, but also the awesome responsibility to
leave our children--and their children--a healthier soil, and a
better future," says IFDC President Dr. Amit Roy.
The 27-minute video
documents how Marbau and Kissem and their five children eke a sparse
living from the land in Togo, West Africa, where most people survive
on about one U.S. dollar a day. For centuries their ancestors
cleared brush, grew two or three crops, then left the land fallow
for several years, so that the soil could regain its fertility.
But the soil can no
longer rest; it must feed too many people. Population across Africa
is increasing about 3% per year, whereas food production is
increasing only about 2% per year.
"Continuously
removing nutrients from the soil, without replacing them, is like
withdrawing money from your checking account, but putting none back
in...ultimately you’ll have no money. And that is what’s
happening with the soils in Sub-Saharan Africa," Roy explains.
The region is one
of the world’s most over-populated—even though population
density is relatively low, says Dr. Henk Breman, Director of
IFDC’s Africa Program. "That’s because the climates are
harsh, and the soils are so poor."
Fertilizers,
whether organic or mineral, are food for plants, Breman explains,
and can return to the soil the life-giving nutrients that farmers
harvest as food and fiber.
In the past 50
years, world use of mineral fertilizer has increased from about 30
million to 145 million tons—and grain harvests have tripled, from
680 million to about 2 billion tons, says Dr. Norman Borlaug, the
1970 Nobel Laureate who developed improved wheat varieties that feed
hundreds of millions. Time magazine named Borlaug, who serves on
IFDC’s Board of Directors, one of the 100 greatest scientists of
the 20th century.
The manufacture of
nitrogen, the key nutrient of most fertilizers, is "the most
significant technical invention of this century," claims Dr.
Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba, Canada, in the video. At
least 2.4 billion of today’s 6 billion people are alive because of
nitrogen fertilizer, Smil says.
High-yielding
agriculture, made possible by fertilizers, gives the industrial
nations the world’s cheapest food, says Dr. Balu Bumb, IFDC Senior
Economist. A U.S. family spends less than 10% of its take-home pay
on food. In contrast, half of the world earns less than US$2 per day
and spends 50 to 70% of their income for food.
"The earth’s
population will grow by 2 billion--equivalent to today’s combined
populations of China and India--by 2025," Bumb says.
"Ninety-five percent of the increase will be in developing
countries. Population growth will be greatest in Sub-Saharan
Africa--from today’s 640 million to 1.5 billion people."
Africa’s wildlife
symbolizes, to many, our environment. Yet hunger forces farmers like
Marbau and Kissem to farm the habitats of wild animals and plants.
The bison has
disappeared from the North American plains, Dr. Borlaug says,
"and this will happen in...game parks in Africa, unless we
learn to use the land suitable for agriculture to its maximum
potential."
IFDC research shows
that improving soil fertility of 1 hectare of land in Africa saves 5
to 6 hectares of endangered forest or hillside, says Dr. Deborah
Hellums, IFDC Soil Fertility Scientist.
Some cynics say
that Africa can never feed itself. "But critics said the same
about Bangladesh and Albania," IFDC President Roy responds.
"And look what happened."
IFDC helped the
Bangladesh government "privatize" its highly subsidized
fertilizer industry, making plant nutrients cheaper and more widely
available. IFDC also developed a simple machine that forms urea into
"briquettes" that farmers can place into the rice root
zone. That increases fertilizer use efficiency, and yields, by about
30%. Hundreds of entrepreneurs now manufacture the fertilizer
briquettes across Bangladesh.
"By 1991 this
country, which everyone thought would be the symbol of poverty and
starvation, was feeding itself. A remarkable feat!" says Dan
Waterman, IFDC Bangladesh Project Coordinator.
"Albania
seemed like a hopeless case when IFDC came to help develop its
agribusiness sector," says Ian Gregory, IFDC Agribusiness
Program Coordiator. "After 45 years of Marxism and isolation,
famine seemed possible."
IFDC helped develop
a nationwide network of fertilizer distributors. As a result of
improved fertilizer availability, wheat and maize yields have almost
doubled, and agricultural production has increased by 7% yearly.
"If it can
happen in Bangladesh and Albania," Ian Gregory, IFDC
Agribusiness Program Coordinator says, "it can happen
anywhere."
Order copies of the
video—Program Number 99003 (US $24.95) from AGCOM International,
4005 North Lugano Way, Flagstaff, AZ, 86004, U.S.A. (Phone/fax
1-800-598-3372, www.agcomintl.com,
larry.klaas@mciworld.com) or from Purchasing Department, IFDC, Box
2040, Muscle Shoals, AL, U.S.A. (Phone 256-381-6600, fax
256-381-7408, purchasing@ifdc.org).
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