Evaluation of Soil Fertility Status and Land Suitability for Smallholder Farmers’ Groundnut and Maize Production in Chisamba District, Zambia

A study was conducted to determine the soil fertility status and the suitability of land for the smallholder farmers’ sustainable production of groundnut and maize in Chisamba District of Zambia. Composite soil samples (0 – 30 cm) were collected from the fields of 18 randomly selected major groundnut producing villages. The soils were analysed for various chemical and physical properties. Then focused group discussions as instruments of data collection were used to capture information on market availability for groundnuts. The simple limitation method was used to compute land suitability. The results showed that most (63.63%) of the soils were strongly acidic, with the mean pH of 4.95±0.35. The mean of CEC was 3.63±2.73 cmol / kg. There was a highly significant and positive relationship between pHCaCl2 and the concentration of Ca (r = 0.653, P = .000), Mg (r = 0.614, P = .000) and K (r = 0.651, P = .000). There was also a positive highly significant relationship between N and SOM (r = 0.487, P = .004). A positive and highly significant relationship between gender of the smallholder farmer and sale of groundnuts at markets of nearest towns (r = 0.202, P = .005) was observed. It was observed that 72.22% of the groundnuts producing areas of Chisamba District were marginally suitable (S3) for groundnut production. It was also observed that 68.75 % of the soils in the study area were marginally suitable for maize production. It was concluded that the major soil fertility limiting factors were soil acidity, low CEC, SOM, Ca, Mg, K and N. The major socio-economic limiting factor was the non-availability of stable markets.