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Soil fertility degradation has been described as the single most important constraint to food security in sub-Saharan Africa. This document examines the scientific and technological requirements for redressing these failures and for scaling up the widespread adoption of the use of soil management practices to conquer both the yield gap and environmental damage. The paper discusses the state of soil fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa and its relationship with declining crop yields.

Despite the problems of declining soil fertility, the paper outlines a platform for future success in impoving the data and information on soil quality which includes:

• diagnosis and targeting: the availability of new remote sensing and geographic information tools has led to breakthroughs in objective assessment of spatial variation in soil quality and soil degradation across a range of scales, from plot to country
  
• integrated nutrient management: based on replicated experiments across Africa, a consensus has emerged that the highest and most sustainable productivity gains per unit nutrient added are from mixtures of inorganic inputs (fertilisers) and organic inputs
  
• cropping system design: significant adoption of various improved technologies that embrace integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) has been documented across SSA
  
• emergence of integrated approaches: it is now generally accepted that soil management recommendations need to be more than just technically sound but should also be socially, environmentally and economically acceptable, making stakeholders participants in, rather than just beneficiaries of, research and development
  
• working across scales: substantial progress has been made in developing and integrating new tools to embrace scales of interaction, such as participatory analysis, geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing, agro-ecological and farming systems analysis, monitoring and evaluation of ecosystem services, rapid spectroscopy techniques for soil analysis, and molecular tools to study soil biodiversity
  
• networking: great value has been added to African expertise through well-established research and development networks in the area of natural resource management, within and across borders and between national and international institutions.

The paper concludes that there is a need for an aggressive strategy to reverse these trends and equip Africa’s research and education systems with the human and physical resources required to support agricultural development and sustain the soil resource base.

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