Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics Food Security Group

The Ebonyi State project led by Dr. Blessing Agada featured 1) Meeting and sensitization of smallholder farmers about the project activity and its importance 2) collection of soil samples from 10 farmer fields across 3 council wards in each of the 13 Local Government Areas (LGA) of the state.

While on the field, we were given in-depth information and knowledge about soils by our lead. The team was divided into two groups to facilitate coverage of the farmer fields in the selected LGAs. Several research reports I had previously read about soils across Nigeria showed that soils in the South were acidic in nature. While on the field however, with the aid of a portable digital soil sensor device used to read the pH and other soil parameters on the spot, we discovered that in some of the sampled LGAs, the soils were not acidic. The pH values were as high as 8.39 at the surface in Ihotor council ward, Ezza South in one of the LGAs sampled. Dr. Agada explained that the agro-climatic zone within Ebonyi State was transient and also that the observed granite quarries may impact on the soils since the constituents of granite are alkaline (alkali feldspar) in nature. Thus, from the parent rocks the soils formed from weathering would take characteristics tending towards alkalinity. With this kind of finding, she emphasized the need to manage soils’ physical, chemical and biological properties, with respect to their variations by geographical locations advocating for site specific soil management.