The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and MATI, a company that spreads rock dust on smallholder fields, have agreed a five-year collaboration to test whether crushed basalt can improve African soils and crops, CGIAR announced. The memorandum of understanding was signed at the Food and Agriculture Pavilion run by CGIAR and FAO at the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Türkiye.
The trials, in Kenya and Nigeria, will measure the effect of basalt dust applied to soil on soil health and crop growth, test how it performs alongside reduced use of synthetic fertiliser, and identify the soil types and farming systems where it works best. The agreement also covers data sharing, scientific publication, training with national research institutes and joint fundraising. It was signed by Shantanu Agarwal, MATI's founder and chief executive, John Choptiany of IITA, and Todd Rosenstock, CGIAR's director of climate action.
MATI says the material can help address soil acidity and supply nutrients; as the rock weathers, it can also draw carbon dioxide from the air, the process known as enhanced rock weathering. "Smallholder farmers are facing hotter seasons, longer dry spells and fertiliser prices they cannot always afford. Rock dust could help on all three fronts, but that has to be shown in African fields first," said Choptiany, who leads IITA's resilience and climate adaptation programme.
MATI applies the dust to smallholder fields free of charge. It reports that in a 2025 kharif-season rice comparison on 235 farmer fields in four Indian states, treated fields gave a median of 25 per cent more grain than control plots, and that more than 35,000 farmers work with it and over 350,000 tonnes of rock dust have been spread in seven countries. CGIAR stresses that these are the company's figures from India and are no evidence that the same will hold in African soils, which is what the trials are for. MATI began work in Zambia in 2023.
"Farmers should get advice on rock dust that comes from trials in their own soils, run by scientists their governments already trust," Agarwal said.
The results will feed two CGIAR science programmes: the Sustainable Farming Program, which works with national partners in more than 20 countries and will pass the findings to the advisers who reach farmers, and the Climate Action Program, which will link them to work on adapting to heat and drought and to climate policy and finance decisions.
Source: CGIAR (written by Barbra Muzata)
Comments
(0)