Cover Crops in Vegetable Production and Urban Farming in Sub-Saharan Countries

Global food production has not kept pace with the increasing population growth. There is a decline in soil fertility and accelerated desertification on marginal soils worldwide, including Ghana Decades of cropping have resulted in unbalanced soil fertility, reduced levels of soil organic matter (OM) and abundance of marginal and degraded soils. Efforts to revive global agricultural productivity, including in Africa, must deal with degraded soils in many parts of the region. A cover crop is a crop planted primarily to manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in an agro-ecosystem, which is an ecological system managed and largely shaped by humans across a range of intensities to produce food, feed, or fibre. The proportion of Ghana’s population living in urban communities continues to increase. Farming, and for that matter vegetable cultivation, is conventionally a trade for rural dwellers.