FARM meets (episode 4) Guillaume Amadji: research in the service of tropical soils
The FARM Foundation, in partnership with the Beninese media Le Rural, goes to meet the professor Guillaume Amadji, lecturer-researcher in soil sciences at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin.
Head of the Tropical Soil Fertility Research Unit, he has dedicated his career to agricultural research applied to production systems in tropical environments.
In this episode, Professor Amadji explains the major challenges linked to the fertilization of Beninese soils.
“The rural world is the least well-off in our developing countries”, he explains. After the Covid-19 crisis and then the war in Ukraine, imported fertilizers saw their cost increase sharply, forcing Beninese farmers – already vulnerable – to rethink their practices to preserve the health of their soils. FARM has also published a study on the subject which can be found here: https://fondation-farm.org/etude-hausse-prix-agricultures-africaines/
Faced with these challenges, his team is developing alternatives for fertilization by promoting local agricultural resources: compost, organic matter, agricultural by-products (ABP), and techniques adapted to tropical soils.
Driven by numerous research projects carried out by doctoral students within the Soil Sciences Laboratory, this research aims to “to offer solutions for better management of soil fertility while protecting the environment”, he emphasizes.
The results of this work are transmitted to the National Agricultural Research System (SNRA), a public body responsible for evaluating these methods in the field and disseminating them to market gardeners in Cotonou and producers across the country.
