Integrating Biofertilizers with Conservation Agriculture Can Enhance Its Capacity to Mitigate Climate Change: Examples from Southern Africa

Climate change is now a palpable threat to sustainable agriculture in Africa. Whereas some advances have been made in the agricultural sector on climate change adaptation, the same cannot be said of mitigation. Climate-smart approaches have been experimented on and recommended, but stunning results are yet to be achieved. The objectives of this chapter were to examine the contribution of conservation agriculture (CA) to soil organic carbon (SOC) stock and how SOC management could enhance climate change mitigation under southern Africa conditions. Whereas application of CA increased SOC stock by up to 104% under experimental conditions, it was not sustainable in the field because the organic matter input was limited and unreliable. Increased use of inorganic fertilizers, especially nitrogen, has been recommended to boost biomass production. Unfortunately, inorganic fertilizer manufacture and application e.g. urea is associated with increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Instead, this study proposes increased use of biofertilizers namely biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) bacteria and vesicular–arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi. This review concluded that biofertilizers would sustainably boost SOC input without the danger of GHG emission and should be a compulsory aspect of CA.