Food production on acid soils in the developing world: Problems and solutions

The current state of food production on acid soils in developing regions is presented. Africa lags far behind ASEAN and Latin American nations in almost all the parameters considered. Agronomic research shows that the resources and potential productivity are the same in all these regions. The reasons for the poor performance of Africa are to be found in government corruption, civil strife, poor infrastructure, lack of inputs and markets and the unavailability of production loans. The Millennium Project established by the United Nations is presented as the framework for a possible solution to these problems.