Innovative Approaches to Scaling up Indigenous Vegetable Production and Utilization in West Africa.

Sub Saharan Africa is the only location in the world where per capita food production is decreasing due to a combination of high population growth, low fertilizer usage, droughts, and low soil fertility. Sustainable intensification of agriculture is required to provide food security, but requires innovations to be effective for the resource-limited rural farmers of the region. In this presentation, the overall approach of our international research team in expanding the production of indigenous vegetables to improve food security of smallholder farmers in Benin and Nigeria will be explained. We are applying a combination of agronomic innovations that include fertilizer microdosing, the direct soil placement of small amounts of fertilizer to meet crop demands, improved water efficiency, and improved seed production to improve profitability of the system. We will also present evaluation of the sustainability of the system (via synchrotron-based XAS) and our approach of using GIS-based approaches to scale up agronomic recommendations.