Soil Research in Nigeria: Response to Local Needs or Bandwagon Effect of Global Trends? a Quantitative Analysis of Three Decades

A critical study of soil research in Nigeria from 1980 – 2014 was conducted based on published original research within the period, and this was compared with studies conducted in USA, Europe, China and worldwide. The focus of Nigerian soil research was evaluated in the light of local agricultural needs, national policies, and global trends. The tool used to search online databases was Google scholar, as it proved to have the widest coverage of available data in comparison to five other top search engines. Search topics were categorised under ten broad soil research areas of agronomy/fertility, chemistry, contamination, pedology, physics and conservation, microbiology, climate change, land use, integrated soil fertility management and gender issues in soil use. Decade by decade quantitative analysis of soil research for 1980 – 2009 was carried out while yearly analysis was done for 2010 - 2014, using percentage contributions of individual research areas to the total research carried out. The content of nationally published soil research, evaluated by the Nigerian Journal of Soil Science and SSSN Proceedings indicated Nigerian soil research to be mainly on soil fertility, chemistry, pedology and physics/conservation. On the contrary, internationally published research as shown by Google Scholar documented high volume of research in climate change, chemistry and land use in Nigeria since 1980. This was in line with global trends, which showed that more than 70 % of worldwide research in the past three decades comprised studies on climate change, chemistry, land use and soil contamination. The study determined that research in USA, Europe and China was a consistent and direct response to the peculiar regional needs, environmental or climatic conditions. On the other hand, soil research in Nigeria was largely responsive to local agricultural needs and policies up to the mid 1990s only. In the past decade however, the major factors which shaped Nigerian research focus appeared to be the criteria set out by funding agencies in order to qualify for research grants, or a desire to fit into ‘trending’ global research topics.