Socio-ecological niche for system-specific soil fertility management

Arable land in sub-Saharan Africa is continuously being depleted due to intensified production without adequate soil fertility replenishment resulting in a decline in crop yield. Recommended technologies differ in their resource requirement (socio-economic factors) and performance effectiveness (biophysical factors) that vary across sites and seasons. Thus, poor adoption of these technologies has been linked to their poor performance at farmers' conditions due to the insufficient fit of technology requirements to the prevailing socio-ecological conditions. Moreover, the resource base quality and availability depends on socio-ecological factors that are likely to change over time. The approach used in this work is technology assessment followed by matching-approach based on relevant socio-ecological conditions and is seen to serve for a site- and system-specific targeting of technology options. Scenarios analysis predicted possible trajectories for decision makers to choose the appropriate direction for future development. This approach promises a wider applicability and a solution to effective targeting of technologies especially in the resource-poor smallholder systems.