362 Enabling Policies and Institutions for Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems
the capital stock, and thereby the service flows derived from it. The other three
focus more on the flows themselves, either reducing losses, increasing inputs or
improving efficiencies of nutrient use.
An approach aimed at increasing inputs and reducing outputs suggests a set of
interventions, ranging from fertilizer application or soil conservation measures,
through a range of biological management approaches, involving agroforestry,
green manure production, legume use and so on. The details of such technologies
are well known, and many combinations have been tested in field settings across
Africa.^1 To different degrees, all options are evident in the different case study sites.
Depending on the agroecology of the site, the asset base of the farmer and the
institutional and policy context, different options have been picked up and used,
singly or in combination.
A number of common elements can be found in the current research and
extension activities being pursued in each of the countries studied. In most sites,
extension recommendations are dominated by inorganic fertilizer recommenda-
tions. Where organic amendments are part of the extension package, they often
recommend unfeasibly high levels of application rates.^2 In some sites, particularly
as a result of NGO and research projects, a wider range of technologies for increas-
ing nutrient inputs have been tested. For example, all sites have had composting
pits tried out, alongside a range of agroforestry options. However, in most cases a
simple transfer of technical design to a range of farmer settings has resulted in
limited uptake. Thus, for example, in the lowland Ethiopian site, the multiple pit
composting system recommended by the Ministry of Agriculture was quickly
abandoned in favour of a simpler technology. Similarly, the alley farming tech-
niques which had been promoted were also rejected by farmers, in favour of plant-
ing trees in homesteads and along field boundaries. In southern Mali, by contrast,
considerable effort has been made by researchers and extension workers over recent
years to help farmers develop organic fertilizer production through a variety of
means, including composting, which provides organic materials for farmers with
few or no livestock. In this way, research has aimed to address the obvious differ-
ences in assets and constraints faced by poorer and richer households.
Direct investment in the capital stock of a soil through recapitalization is an
approach which has recently been widely advocated (Sanchez et al, 1997). In terms
of technologies, this may involve the application of rock phosphate to enhance
phosphorous stocks and the use of nitrogen-enriched fallows for nitrogen recapi-
talization. This has seen little application in the case study sites, although rock
phosphate options are being explored in both Mali and Zimbabwe. However, the
degree to which such additions may act to recapitalize natural capital or act as a
cheap supplementary amendment (perhaps in combination with organic sources)
is unclear. For most farmers, such technical solutions are not part of their current
repertoire. Their means of increasing capital stocks has rather been through the
painstaking, labour-intensive process of continuous fertilization and cultivation.
This, as the case studies have shown, takes place largely in gardens and homefield
sites where the large bulk of organic matter is placed. For other plots, the options