Kenya
A farmer in Embu applies the same phosphorus he applied last year, and the year before. The maize still stunts. He assumes he needs more fertilizer. He almost certainly does not, because on strongly acidic ground most of the phosphorus he buys never reaches the crop...
Tanzania
Walk a cashew farm in Mtwara or Lindi at flowering and you will see thousands of flowers on a single tree. Come back at harvest and count the nuts. The gap between those two numbers is where most of Tanzania’s cashew income disappears. Cashew is Tanzania’s...
Kenya
A Kenyan avocado consignment can fail before it leaves the country, and the reason is often a single number on an inspector’s report. Dry matter content. Fruit that tests below the threshold for its variety does not clear for export, and a grower who harvests...
jordan
Jordan’s farming is not all in the warm Jordan Valley. Up on the highlands around Amman, Madaba, Al-Salt, and the northern governorates, the cooler climate and higher elevation suit a different set of crops: stone fruit like peach, apricot, plum, and almond,...
Sudan
Sudan sits on some of the most fertile irrigated land in Africa. The Gezira Scheme, spread across the clay plain between the Blue and White Niles, is one of the largest irrigation projects in the world, and the semi-mechanized belt to its east has long been called the...
India
Every fertilizer distributor in Maharashtra, Gujarat, or Karnataka has heard the objection. A farmer looks at the price of water-soluble fertilizer, compares it to a bag of conventional urea or DAP, and says the soluble product costs too much. The objection is real....
