QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF COMMERCIAL BIOFERTILISERS AND THE AWARENESS OF SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN GAUTENG PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA by ADEKUNLE RAIMI submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in the subject Environmental Science at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: Prof R A Adeleke January 2018 Dedication This work is dedicated to my beloved wife and children. i Declaration . I RAIMI ADEKUNLE, hereby declare that the dissertation/thesis, which I hereby submit for the degree of Masters in Environmental Science at the University of South Africa, is my own work and has not previously been submitted by me or any other person for a degree at this or any other institution. I declare that the dissertation does not contain any written work presented by other persons whether written, pictures, graphs or data or any other information without acknowledging the source. I declare that where words from a written source have been used, the words were paraphrased and referenced, and where exact words from a source have been used, the words have been placed inside quotation marks and referenced. I declare that I have not copied and pasted any information from the internet, without specifically acknowledging the source and have inserted appropriate references to these sources in the reference section of the dissertation. I declare that during my study I adhered to the Research Ethics Policy of the University of South Africa, received ethics approval for the duration of my study prior to the commencement of data gathering, and have not acted outside the approval conditions. I declare that the content of my dissertation has been submitted through an electronic plagiarism detection programme before the final submission for examination. _________________________ Signed: Adekunle R. Raimi Date: December, 2017 ii Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge the following individuals and organisations for their support towards the completion of this study: Firstly, my sincere gratitude to the Almighty Jehovah, the giver of life, knowledge and wisdom who supported me from the genesis to the revelation of the fulfilment of this study. I give glory, honour and adoration unto Him, and to my Lord, Jesus Christ. To my wife, Oluwatoyin Racheal, I really appreciate your continuous love and support, especially during my studies. Also to my loved ones, Arajesu Morayooluwa and Jesulayomi Morolayo, God bless you. I am also very grateful to my father and mother and other family members who supported in diverse ways. I particularly wish to appreciate my supervisor, Professor Rasheed Adeleke, whose support and understanding has contributed immensely to the achieved success. Thank you so very much for your time, dedication and knowledge shared. To all the members of Microbiology and Environmental Biotechnology Research Group at the Institute for Soil, Climate and Water- Agricultural Research Council, I appreciate you for your encouragement and administrative and technical support. I want to appreciate my very good friend and brother, Obinna Ezeokoli and other colleagues, especially Dr Ashira, Dr Busiswa, Dr Emomotimi, Dr Goodman and Teboho for their invaluable contributions in achieving this great goal. Thank you all. This work was jointly supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), through the Research and Technology Fund (RTF) [grant number 98692]. I also acknowledge UNISA (Masters by Dissertation bursary) and Agricultural Research Council for their financial support. iii Special thanks to the staff of Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Pretoria and Randfontein regions, particularly Mr Arthur Madaka and Sir Lesego Phakedi for granting me the opportunity to interview the smallholder farmers in their regions. iv Research output Publication Soil fertility challenges and biofertiliser as a viable alternative for increasing smallholder farmer crop productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. Cogent Food & Agriculture, 3(1), 1-26, Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311932.2017.1400933. Adekunle Raimi, Rasheed Adeleke and Ashira Roopnarain v Summary This study aimed to evaluate commercial biofertiliser quality and awareness amongst smallholder farmers in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Sixty-seven smallholder farmers were interviewed in Gauteng Province by using a survey method, while the physicochemical and microbiological properties of 13 biofertilisers were evaluated using laboratory experiments. The results showed that awareness and use of biofertiliser are very poor, with 96% of the smallholder farmers surveyed not having biofertiliser knowledge. Furthermore, the products lack basic quality parameters: 54% contained no biofertiliser strain while all the products contained microbial contaminants. The pH, moisture content and viable microbial densities were below the acceptable standards for some of the products. Two fungal and 58 bacterial operational taxonomic units were obtained from the 16S rRNA Sanger sequences while 5 791 OTUs were obtained from the Illumina Miseq system. Approximately 40%, 41% and 59% of the isolates were positive for nitrogen-fixation, siderophore production and phosphorous solubilisation. Overall, there is a need to improve awareness amongst farmers and promote good-quality biofertiliser products for increased crop productivity. Keywords: Biofertiliser, contaminants, crop productivity, awareness, quality parameters. vi Table of Contents Pages Dedication ................................................................................................................................i Declaration..............................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgements ...............................................................................................................iii Research output .......................................................................................................................v Summary ................................................................................................................................vi Table of Contents .................................................................................................................vii List of Tables ........................................................................................................................xii List of Figures ......................................................................................................................xiv List of Abbreviations ...........................................................................................................xvi Chapter One ............................................................................................................................1 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 2 1.1 Background ................................................................................................................ 2 1.2 Rationale .................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Justification ................................................................................................................ 4 1.4 Hypotheses ................................................................................................................5 1.5 Aim and objectives .................................................................................................... 5 Chapter Two .......................................................................................................................... 6 2. Literature review.................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Introduction ...............................................................................................................7 2.1.1 Smallholdings and Smallholder Farmers ........................................................... 7 2.1.2 Smallholder farmers in South Africa ................................................................. 8 2.1.3 Smallholder economic importance .................................................................... 9 2.1.4 Smallholder challenges .................................................................................... 10 2.2 Challenges in the use of inorganic and organic fertilisers ....................................... 10 2.3 Awareness and application of biofertiliser among South African smallholder farmers.….................................................................................................................12 2.3.1 Factors affecting awareness and use of biofertilisers among smallholder farmers ............................................................................................................. 13 2.4 Soil fertility .............................................................................................................. 14 vii 2.5 Biofertiliser .............................................................................................................. 16 2.5.1 What are biofertilisers? .................................................................................... 16 2.5.2 Types of biofertiliser ....................................................................................... 18 2.6 History of biofertiliser ............................................................................................