KMT Agri-research
Market and Economic Feasibility of Granulated Lime in Kenya
Approximately 13 percent of Kenya’s agricultural land (about 7.5 million hectares) is affected by soil acidity. Acidity presents a significant constraint towards the country’s efforts to maximise productivity and achieve food and nutritional security. The high crop potential areas are majorly affected by soil acidity due to continuous cropping, loss of organic carbon, nutrient leaching, and inappropriate use of fertilisers.

Preliminary Reviews On Agricultural Lime
Agricultural Productivity and Soil Acidity
Farm-level agricultural productivity is affected by various challenges. They include limited access to quality inputs, low extension support, slow adoption of improved technologies, and soil degradation (FAO. 2017; Bekabil, 2014). According to KARLO (2019), yields for common crops such as maize have stagnated at around 1.7 MT/ha for smallholder farmers than some commercial farmers who achieve between 10 to 15 MT/ha while yields for beans range between o.3MT/Ha to 0.5mt/ha. To increase crop productivity, smallholder farmers often tend to increase the use of fertilisers. According to KALRO (2018), the use of fertilisers increased by 25% between 2014 and 2016. According to the Ministry of Agriculture (2018), the most commonly used fertiliser is Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP).
Even though the current average fertiliser use of 30kg/ha, falls far below the 50kg/ha recommended by the Abuja Declaration of 2006, nitrogenous fertilisers such as DAP have mostly resulted in acidic soils. Soil acidity also increases with heavy rainfall and leaching, use of ammonium-based fertilisers, acidic parent material, soil erosion and organic matter decay.
The Key Benefits Of Agricultural Lime Include:
Raising soil pH, improving the soil properties and nutrients available to the plants as it improves the availability and uptake of major plant nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium and potassium) of plants growing on acid soils;

KMT Research
Market and Economic Feasibility of Granulated Lime in Kenya
Format: PDF
Research: 1.3 MB
Policy Brief: 314 KB
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