Nelly Bassily | May 25, 2009
It is often the case that the best, most affordable and most accessible fertilizers are generated from materials that are normally thought of as waste. Past issues of FRW have reported on women in Kampala slums who clean gutters and earn money by turning food waste into compost (http://weekly.farmradio.org/2009/03/16/1-uganda-turning-trash-into-treasure-by-sawa-pius-for-farm-radio-weekly-in-kampala/) and Burundians farmers, who, unable to afford chemical fertilizers, found that the rice bran left over from rice shelling was a good alternative (http://weekly.farmradio.org/2008/04/14/2-burundi-rice-bran-can-substitute-for-chemical-fertilizer-syfia-grands-lacs/).
To explore the issue of fertilizers in your area, you could host a call-in or text-in show that invites local farmers to share their experiences with different types of fertilizer:
-Are chemical fertilizers readily available and affordable? Has the cost or accessibility of chemical fertilizers changed in the past few years?
-What organic alternatives to chemical fertilizers have farmers tried? Are these fertilizers made from waste materials? What was their motivation for using the organic fertilizer? Was it cost, availability, effectiveness, health concerns, or some other reason?
-If they have tried both organic and chemical fertilizers, which materials did farmers find most effective? What application methods worked best?
Many scripts on the topic of soil fertility can be found here:
–http://www.farmradio.org/english/radio-scripts/fertilization.asp