By Abdullahi Hussaini Liman, New Mexico State University.
Many farmers across the world are facing a silent problem, ranging from soils that are tired, weak and soil fertility loss year after year. These challenges, caused by factors such as continuous cropping, erosion, and overuse of chemical fertilizers, is reducing crop yields and making farming less profitable. But there is a simple, natural, and effective solution that many farmers are yet to embrace fully: cover crops.
What Are Cover Crops?
Cover crops are plants grown not to harvest but to protect and improve the soil health. They include crops such as cowpea, alfalfa, barley, winter Austrian pea, hairy vetch, and winter rye, to mention but a few, that you may already know but may not be using to their full benefits.
Instead of leaving the soil bare after harvest, farmers can plant these crops to cover the field until the next planting season. These crops bring life back to the soil in many ways. Examples of cover crops are Legume, Oats, Buckwheat, Sorghum x drummondii, Crimson Clover, Annual ryegrass and cabbages etc.
Benefits of Cover Crops to Farmers:
Improve Soil Fertility: Leguminous cover crops like cowpea fix nitrogen from the air into the soil. This means your main crops, like maize, cassava, or tomato, can grow better with less chemical fertilizer.
Reduce Weeds: Cover crops suppress weed growth by covering the soil surface. Fewer weeds correlate with less herbicide use and reduced labor costs.
Prevent Soil Erosion: In places where heavy rain washes away topsoil, cover crops hold the soil together with their roots, keeping nutrients on your farm and not down the river
Increase Soil Organic Matter: When cover crops die or are plowed back into the soil, they add organic matter that improves soil structure, water holding capacity, and even microbial life.
Real Impact from Research:
Recent field trials have shown that using cover crops like cowpea and barley in rotation with main crops can boost yield, reduce erosion, and improve soil health over time. Farmers who used cover crops saw better crop stands, higher organic matter levels, and reduced soil compaction compared to those who left their fields bare.
A Message to Farmers:
Planting should be done after your main crop harvest or between planting seasons. Depending on the objective of the cover crop planting, for nitrogen-fixing crops, use cowpea, winter Austrian pea or clover. For weed control, use fast-growing crops like winter rye or ryegrass. For the best result, you can mix both nitrogen-fixing and weed control cover crops.
Meanwhile, cover crops may seem like an extra task, but in the long run, it will save you money on fertilizer, improve your soil, and give you better and bigger harvests, As more farmers adopt this simple practice, agriculture can become more productive, profitable, and sustainable to proffer solution to food insecurity.
Sources:
New Mexico State University Extension Plant Science
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports on Sustainable Soil Management
