Abstract:
A participatory approach was used to improve smallholder
tomato farmers’ understanding of and access to soil health
monitoring in the Morogoro Region of Tanzania. Baseline soil
characteristics were gathered from 50 tomato fields in the region,
local soil knowledge was elicited from farmers and used to de-
velop a soil health card to qualitatively assess soil health, and
farmers (n = 32) were trained on the use of a low-cost soil test kit
to quantitatively assess soil health. Farmers most often described
local indicators of soil health in terms of soil texture and tilth, soil
color, soil water relations, and soil fertility. Following use of the soil test kit, farmers indicated increased awareness of soil testing
services (Wilcoxon signed rank Z = –3.0, P = 0.001), more agreed
they had access to soil testing services (Z = –2.7, P = 0.004), and
more agreed that soil management recommendations were easy
to understand (Z = –3.4, P < 0.0001) compared with pre-exposure
results. Farmers continued to use the soil health test kit and soil
health card based on a follow-up survey administered 1 year after
project completion. Participatory soil health monitoring projects
can improve farmers’ ability to monitor and manage soil health,
potentially impacting sustained soil and plant health.
