Soil provides nutrients, water, and minerals to plants and trees, stores carbon, and is home to billions of insects, small animals, bacteria and many other microorganisms. Yet the amount of fertile soil on the planet is declining at an alarming rate, compromising farmers’ ability to grow food to feed a world population expected to reach nine billion by 2050. Fortunately, soil hosts various microbial communities interacting with each other and plant roots. The activities of certain microbial populations can therefore be beneficial to plant growth. This is where the MAB technology comes in. The Work Package 3 “Agroecological Practices” of SAFEVEG, led by CIRAD, has decided to make it available to certain producers in southern Benin.

About fifteen market gardeners from southern Benin attended this practical training on the Ahouicondji market garden perimeter. The aim was to show market gardeners: (i) all the necessary ingredients, which are accessible and locally available; (ii) the criteria for collecting forest litter; (iii) the steps and instructions to be followed when preparing MAB in solid form; and (iv) the method of preservation during the fermentation phase.

To make BAM, microorganisms must be collected from forest litter, a source of microorganisms extremely rich in bacteria, fungi and yeast, both in number and diversity. The local unpasteurised milk will complement lactobacilli useful to acidify the environment and control possible pathogenic organisms. These biologically very diversified micro-organisms will have several roles at the level of the soil and the plant thanks to the presence of (i) nitrogen-fixing and bio-stimulating bacteria that promote the aerial and root growth of the plant, (ii) micro-organisms that accelerate the process of mineralisation of organic matter and (iii) micro-organisms that contribute to the regulation of pests and pathogens.

A total of 18 participants, including 12 producers, came from Ahouicondji, Ouidah, Abomey-Calavi, Togbin, Dogbo, Pahou, Fonsa and Gakpè to attend this practical training.

Two 50-litre cans of BAM in solid form are currently being fermented. This quantity of MAB will be used to make the product that can be used in 4 weeks. After this four-week incubation period, 1600 litres of usable liquid MAB will be produced, according to the trainer @Antoine DE TROIJ. Then, the finished product can be stored and used for 12 months at a rate of 1 spray per week on 0.25 ha and can even be used to make MAB in liquid form.

At the end of the training, producers expressed their interest in this new technology because of its relatively low manufacturing cost and the availability of ingredients in a context where synthetic inputs are experiencing a price hike and, worse, are becoming unavailable on the market.

However, farmers were reminded during the training that BAMs are not a substitute for fertilisers in terms of providing nutrients to the soil and crops. However, they play a decisive role in complementing organic matter inputs.

Beneficial indigenous microorganisms (BAM) are based on multiplying indigenous microorganisms collected locally in areas with little or no human activity to reintroduce this useful functional biodiversity into agricultural plots known as “biologically depressed. This robust technology is already proven in Latin America and South East Asia but still needs to be discovered in Sub-Saharan Africa. They are made from indigenous micro-organisms that multiply through a simple fermentation process.

A second training phase will complete the manufacturing of MAB (production and conservation of MAB in liquid form), and the application techniques and doses will then be presented.