Human health depends on plant health, and plant health depends on soil health. To help square this circle, the World Vegetable Center and the International Fertilizer Development Center have forged stronger links, building on what was already a long-standing relationship.

A new Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 7 September in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the sidelines of the Africa Food Systems Forum. One of the key messages from the week-long event was that to transform agriculture in Africa, as elsewhere, actors and organizations from different disciplines must work more closer together to solve the common challenges. And this MoU is a perfect example of two organizations doing exactly that.

“Joining the above ground and below ground” was stated as an outcome of the collaboration to come. As IFDC Director General Henk van Duijn said, “We have seen the concrete benefits on vegetable yields with our work on soil testing in Zanzibar, and now we are taking our partnership to a new level. Fertilizer efficiently can be as low as 20 or 30 percent, so there is so much scope to improve yields, together.” WorldVeg Director General Marc Wopereis added that “We see at this Forum how vegetables are now the talk of the town, for improving nutrition, livelihoods and resilience. And we can’t do that without better soils.”

The private sector are also key partners. At the signing, the seed company East-West Seed was represented by Elijah Mwashayenyi and Epaphras Milambwe, and who underscored the vital roles that both WorldVeg and IFDC play in achieving the aim of improving agricultural productivity for smallholder farmers.

Both WorldVeg and IFDC are members of the Association of International Research and Development Centers for Agriculture (AIRCA), an international, non-profit alliance focused on increasing food security.