Soil fertility affects Farming

 By Catherine Susan

Kyuso District is located in the Eastern parts of Kenya, where drought is one of the main problems affecting farming processes. According to the history of community members, the area used to receive enough rainfall and there were no drought problems. Food in the farms was doing well and there were minimal crop pests and diseases. But the rains have been reducing each passing year and currently the rains have become so scarce and unpredictable. 

People of this Area are going through hard life due low productivity of the land caused by soil fertility. This Problem has been increasing almost every year as the soil is being degraded. Soil fertility is alleged to be caused by cutting down of trees hence leaving the land bare as a result of soil erosion.

Soil is natural and every living this found it and therefore most people do not consider it as important.  People can take week and months trying to build a dam to prevent water flow but few will spare time to conserve soil.

Resident of this area seem to lack knowledge on the effects of cutting trees, this is evident by the rate at which they are cutting down trees. The erosion has caused valleys and gullies all over and hence facilitation more erosions.

The wind the area is also very strong due to lack of wind breakers such as tree and other soil cover. The tree seed leaves that are suitable for making the soil fertile but the leaves find themselves more that a kilometer away 10minutes after dropping. 

The farmers, from the help of extension officers have resulted to growing of traditional orphan’s crops such as sorghum which does well in the area but with time the production goes down leaving the farmers confused.

Talking to farmer in the area it is evident that they need training on soil conservation, tree planting and way of improving their yield. Secondly, to do a productive farming soil PH test is required so that people can grow crop products that can do well in the region.