By Gabriel Ewepu 

ABUJA – THE Chief Executive Officer, CEO, and Managing Director, Proxylogics, Ross Alabo-George, recently said smallholder farmers need to apply bio-stimulants as measures to mitigate against impacts of climate change, and be equipped with relevant knowledge and inputs to boost soil fertility in order to have good yields.

Alabo-George stated this on the sidelines of the ‘Soil, Climate and Agricultural Sustainability Summit, SCASS 2025, with the theme ‘Building Climate Smart and Inclusive Agricultural Systems: Aligning Policy, Practice, and Innovation’, held in Abuja organized by Proxylogics, the distributor of BiOWiSH in Nigeria.

He also explained that the essence of the Summit, which is basically a high-policy dialogue focused on Soil degradation, fertilizer use, and Climate Smart Agricultural practices, which brought together stakeholders to explore innovative pathways towards sustainable soil and land use practices in Nigeria.

He added that the Summit tends to consider the best techniques and whatever Climate Smart Agriculture, CSA, techniques going forward that would be driven down the line to smallholder farmers who are having such challenges are reached.

According to him, it is imperative to move beyond a system where farmers adopt the same kind of fertilizer for every farm, because it does not work, “we need to have custom specific prescription fertilizers per soil.” And he added that with the federal government’s push with policy on soil health will serve as the bedrock for the agenda of specific fertilizer production that are targeted towards specific farms, and soil health mapping.  

The conference had in Government institutions: Federal Ministry of Agriculture, ACReSAL, and relevant Civil society and professional associations: Soil Science Society of Nigeria, farmer state agencies; Academia and research: Universities and institutes specializing in soil fertility; Private sector: Agribusiness companies, financiers, and BioWish Africa. 

The summit was organized under the theme ‘Building Climate Smart and Inclusive Agricultural Systems: Aligning Policy, Practice, and Innovation’, in recognition of degradation, and persistent food insecurity. It provided a neutral, knowledge-sharing platform for open dialogue and collaboration between government agencies, academic institutions, the need to strengthen Nigeria’s agricultural systems in the face of climate variability, land private sector, donor organizations, and farming communities. 

He said: “The whole idea is we are targeting how do we get the best kind of inputs to smallholder rural farmers who are in rural areas. How do we ensure that the smallholder farmer in the rural area actually understands his soil, how to use fertilizer, and you have heard all of the comments from the experts who have spoken. 

“We are ready and are committed to the agenda of moving this initiative that government is also pushing forward because at the end of the day, the business of agriculture is not for governments, it is for all of us.”

He also stated that, “Beyond fertilizers or inorganic fertilizers and organic fertilizers, there is what we call bio-stimulants, and there is a major impact of bio-stimulants in ensuring that we are compliant in Climate Smart Agriculture, CSA. So there is a long-term effect of inorganic fertilizer application and use. So bio-stimulants are a key method.

“Impacts of bio-stimulants application in food production: Bio-stimulants are actually organic products that help create a better rhizosphere and help fertilizer ingestion and intake of nutrients for the plant, and it also repairs the damaged soil. 

“So what it does is like a probiotic for human beings that helps the roots of the soil absorb more of the nutrients.

“Some farmers are already using it. But these are actually available to major farmers. The big farmers are using it but we want this to go down to the small farmers.”

Meanwhile, the Proxylogics boss said, “It is also the duty of government to ensure that the quality of products and the quality of performance of smallholder farmers, which basically are our main producers, is optimized, and so if we must optimize production, if government wants to optimize production, government is not on farms that optimization has to happen with the smallholder farmers who are our key producers.

“And so getting the message down to them because the government has the structure, the wherewithal and the receptacles and tentacles to get to them. 

“So once we are able to get to them, we will get the value that we require, and of course, government should beyond subsidizing inorganic, government should start subsidizing and introducing bio-stimulus directly to the farmers. It is going to do two things; to increase yield, and then we will get food security down the line.”

The Summit was officially declared open by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, represented by Patrick Odey Otu.

 In his opening address, the Minister reiterated the current administration’s unwavering commitment to advancing better and modern sustainable agricultural practices across Nigeria. 

Meanwhile, in a communique issued at the end of the Summit recommended Soil Management: Scale up mobile and laboratory soil testing services nationwide; Promote residue retention, composting, and organic amendments over burning; Develop and enforce quality standards for fertilizers, compost, and biostimulants. 

Policy and Regulation; Strengthen consultation between government, academia, professional societies, and farmer groups; Embed CSA and biostimulant adoption into national and state agricultural policies; and Institutionalize indigenous knowledge within extension systems. 

Finance and Market Access; Mobilize blended finance models linking banks, cooperatives, and research outputs; Encourage farmer equity contributions to improve access to credit; Link financing incentives to CSA adoption and soil health improvements.  

Climate Action and Scaling; Replicate ACReSAL’s integrated landscape management model nationwide; Integrate CSA targets into national agricultural policies and state-level development plans; Promote cross-sectoral collaboration, engaging Ministries of Agriculture, Environment, and Health.