Russia’s incursion into Ukraine in late February 2022 resulted to an abrupt shortage of essential crop fertilizers globally. The World Economic Forum (WEF) attributed this shortage to the imposition of sanctions on Russia and her ally, Belarus, the effect of which was the disruption of the global chemical fertilizer supply chain. Notably, Russia and Belarus are among the world’s largest sources of mineral fertilizers, accounting for around 40 percent of the total global supply (WEF, 2023). Although the conflict in Ukraine is in its third year, the global chemical fertilizer supply chain has since been stabilized and possible food shortage, especially in the global south, averted.
Sustainable agriculture
The world may have moved on from the shock created in the global fertilizer market by Russia’s war in Ukraine. There is, however, a general consensus that chemical fertilizers may not be a sustainable source of crop nutrition in the future. This is especially true for Africa which was heavily reliant on Russian fertilizer before the war in Ukraine. After all, there is no telling when the next war-related fertilizer price spikes will take place. Besides, a plethora of studies have shown that chemical fertilizers can never be a solution to sustainable agriculture owing to the harm they occasion on the environment.
Sustainable agriculture refers to practices which reduce the harmful effects of chemical fertilizers on soil, plants as well as the air. Research shows that chemical fertilizers reduce the organic content in soils thus undermining their quality. Further evidence from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Committee on Agriculture (COAG) shows that chemical fertilizers may have negative impacts on environmental, animal, human and soil health. In the face of such overwhelming evidence, the global south should be looking for alternatives to inorganic fertilizers.
Read: How sub-Saharan Africa can rethink its approach to agriculture
Vermiculture & vermicomposting to the rescue
Vermiculture is one of the most viable alternatives to synthetic fertilizer. Simply explained, vermiculture is the growing or cultivation of worms to produce compost; It is worm farming for agricultural purposes. The process of growing these worms begins with the collection organic waste including food trash, livestock and human waste, paper sludge as well as yard debris. The worms and the organic waste share a symbiotic relationship in that they (the earthworms) feed on the waste. Relatedly, the earthworms decompose the organic waste into nutrient-rich compost. The process by which the organic waste is transformed into compost is known as vermicomposting. The earthworms are thereafter cast into gardens or farms where they excrete. It is their excrement which improves the quality of crops. The nutrient-rich compost is in turn used as manure which improves the chemical, biological, and physical properties of soils.
Vermiculture and vermicomposting are sustainable agricultural methods openly advocated for by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in food insecure nations across Central and South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In 2019, farmers in the Gulbahar region of Turkmenistan were taken through a series of trainings by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on how to carry out vermiculture and vermicomposting in their farms. Apart from improving their crop and soil quality, the Gulbahar farmers found that they could sell compost to other regions. This is a sign that vermiculture/vermicomposting is not only an alternative to chemical fertilizers, but also a form of organic waste management method and economic empowerment.
The future of vermiculture and vermicomposting
Sustainable agricultural methods such as vermiculture and vermicomposting are not without their critics. In their recent paper published on the Break Through Institute website, Vijaya Ramachandran and Alex Smith postulate that organic agriculture can seldom provide the world with the food security it requires. These two authors link the low crop yields in Africa to the far less use of synthetic fertilizer which contains nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The three minerals are essential plant nutrients. However, there is no evidence that synthetic fertilizer is the sole source of the three nutrients for crops. And while there is no denying that Africa does indeed have a food security problem (especially Sub-Saharan Africa), the continent’s limited use of chemical fertilizers may be a blessing in disguise. Perhaps the fertilizer shortage created by the war in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023 presents Africa and the entire global south with an opportunity to develop an alternative fertilizer industry through vermiculture and vermicomposting. Were these processes to be undertaken through large-scale industrial capacity, they would establish Sub-Saharan Africa as a global leader in sustainable agriculture.
Challenges facing the adoption of vermiculture in Africa
While it is clear what the global south needs to do in order to make vermiculture and vermicomposting a vital component of its sustainable agriculture venture, the continent faces obstacles that are all too familiar. These are lack of policies, capacity and finances to roll out vermiculture and vermicomposting on an industrial scale. And yet this is what is needed if there is to be a viable alternative to chemical fertilizers. Specifically, there is need for international development agencies such as the UN and its specialized agencies as well as NGOs to shift their focus from funding organic peasant farming practices. They should instead dedicate their technical and financial resources to sustainable organic fertilizer production methods such as vermiculture and vermicomposting.
Besides, western-based NGOs such as La Via Campesina and Heinrich Böll Stiftung have been discouraging the use of synthetic fertilizer in Africa. They are supported in this regard by FAO and the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy. Although their approach has been blamed, in some quarters, as stifling efforts to make Africa food secure, it is an approach that has spared African soils the damage chemical fertilizers have done elsewhere. What is perhaps needed from these organizations is the scaling up of their efforts in line with this holistic approach to agriculture in the global south. With more investments in sustainable agriculture methods such as vermiculture, these international bodies would not only have made the region food secure, but also healthy.
The call for policy change
The former British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, once referred to his nation’s failed approaches to challenges in Eastern Europe as a “…carcass of dead policies”. Similarly, any insistence on the continued use of chemical fertilizers is akin to sticking to a carcass of dead policies. The global effort to curb climate change has no future for synthetic fertilizer. There is thus an urgent need to find alternatives to inorganic fertilizers, especially in the global south where the supply of these fertilizers is often hampered by global events such as Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. Vermiculture is proposed here as a sustainable agricultural method which produces plant-enriching earthworms as well as nutrient-rich compost which can be an alternative to chemical fertilizers. Since vermiculture and vermicomposting rely on organic waste to work, they can be used to create a promising sustainable agriculture and green future in Africa. What is needed is intensive investment that would ensure they are rolled out on an industrial scale.
