ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Land, Livelihoods and Food Security
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1677182
This article is part of the Research TopicIndigenous and Local Knowledge as a Catalyst for Sustainable Agriculture and Food SecurityView all 21 articles
Applying mulch and manure in smallholder cropping systems: Challenges, realities, limitations, and opportunities
Provisionally accepted
Eugene Dela Setsoafia1*
Harro Maat1
Mohamed El Gharous2
Prem Bindraban3
Comfort Freeman4
Paul Christiaan Struik1- 1Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Netherlands
- 2Universite Mohammed VI Polytechnique, Ben Guerir, Morocco
- 3Africa Rice Center, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
- 4University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
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Soil fertility plays an important role in crop production. However, continuous cropping with minimal fertiliser application has resulted in declining soil fertility and correspondingly low crop yields in smallholder cropping systems. The decline in soil fertility can be partially mitigated by applying local, organic sources of nutrients. Through focus group discussions, this paper explored soil fertility management, focusing on mulch and manure, bringing fresh attention to practical, farmer-led solutions. This study links agronomic practices with the Social Practice theory to show farming as socially embedded rather than purely technical. We found that the use of mulch was primarily limited to specific crops – pepper, tomatoes, garden eggs and yam, planted on less than 0.4 ha of farm field. Manure was applied preferably to maize fields due to the high nutrient requirement of maize and its important role as a staple. Farmers′ understanding of mulch and manure applications reflected a blend of traditional knowledge and scientifically recognized benefits. These practices were valued for their role in protecting perishable crops from pests and drought-related stress and providing a sustained nutrient supply, offering a more affordable alternative to chemical fertilizers. Farmers demonstrated varying levels of competence in their assessment of the quantity of manure required for maize crop production and the timing and mode of application of mulch and manure. The emergence of weeds in fields treated with manure and the lack of competence to manage these weeds, however, require skills and competency development to enable the sustained application of manure.
Keywords: Mulch, Manure, soil fertility, Smallholder farmers, Skills, Social Practice
Received: 31 Jul 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Setsoafia, Maat, El Gharous, Bindraban, Freeman and Struik. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Eugene Dela Setsoafia, eugene.setsoafia@wur.nl
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