Sustainable agroforestry in Benin and Ghana: experiment on fertilizer microdosing | Presentation

The colloquium series year 2026 was opened on 15 January with a contribution by Ms. Géronime Houeto from the DecLaRe project, who currently carries out her PhD research with WASCAL/University of Kassel. The topic of her contribution was “Towards sustainable agroforestry in Benin and Ghana: Findings from a two-year experiment on fertilizer microdosing”. Ms Houeto gave a brief introduction into the situation of farmers in the region who are often not in the position to purchase fertilizer for the government recommended rates. Therefore, fertilizer microdosing had been introduced 20 years ago. However, so far, this approach has not been tested in parkland agroforestry systems in the region, which has now been tackled by Ms Houeto’s research. The data from the past two years showed that microdosing can be an economically viable solution for smallholder farmers in shea parkland systems.

The discussion helped to clarify questions such as the involvement of farmers in the research process, the comparisons between different fertilizer regimes and the novelty of this research. It also provided the opportunity for Dr. Peter Asare-Nuamah to explain how research results from Ms. Houeto’s and other DecLaRe members’ research feeds into the development of decision models currently developed by the INTERFACES project.