BNF Applications for Poverty Alleviation

The causes of poverty worldwide are very complex, but solutions to poverty can be found. Although it is possible to easily identify many roles for biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) in poverty alleviation, it can be difficult for subsistence farmers to achieve sustainable change incorporating new developments that involve BNF. Moderate and extreme poverty occur in many countries located predominantly in a band both north and south of the equator in the tropics and sub-tropics across North and South America, Africa, and Asia. Significantly, many of these countries, in which more than 25% of the population lives on less than US$2 per day, have negative economic growth. The most important determinant in the declining economic growth of these countries is their poor food productivity. The poverty trap for individuals and communities in these countries is mainly a rural phenomenon of peasant farmers caught in a spiral of rising populations and stagnant or decreasing food production per person. Important factors in the poverty-trap situation that these farmers are unable to escape include the poor infrastructure for distribution and communication, the expense of products, such as essential fertilizers, which results in very little use of fertilizers, and under-funded scientific research and extension.