Integrated nutrient management strategies in Eastern Uganda

A project of the CGIAR systemwide program on Soil, Water and Nutrient Management (SWNM), concerned with improving integrated nutrient management practices on small-scale farms in Africa, has been carried out in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda for last two years (September 1999 to September 2001). The project aims to enable small-scale farmers to profitably reverse nutrient depletion of their soils by increasing their capacity to develop, adapt and use integrated natural resource management strategies, and to improve the participatory skills and tools of research and extension personnel to support this process. This paper reports on a Participatory Learning and Action Research (PLAR) process that was initiated in three villages in Eastern Uganda in September 1999. The farming systems of the area were characterised for socio-economic and biophysical conditions that include social organisations, wealth categories, gender, crop, soil, agroforestry and livestock production. Farmers identified soil fertility constraints, indicators and causes of soil fertility decline and suggested strategies to address the problem of soil fertility decline. Soil fertility management diversity among households indicated that most farmers were not carrying out any improved soil fertility management practices, despite previous research and dissemination in the area. Following the diagnosis stage and exposure visits to other farmer groups working on integrated soil fertility projects, the farmer groups designed eleven experiments for testing in the first season. One hundred and twenty farmers then chose, for participatory technology development, sub-sets of these eleven experiments, based on the main agricultural constraints and potential solutions identified and prioritised by the farmers. Quantitative and qualitative results from the testing, farmer evaluation and adaptation, training, dissemination strategies and socio-economic assessment of these technologies are discussed.