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Challenges facing humanity over the years include food insecurity, loss o f soil and water resources and associated ecosystem disturbance. The rate o f hungry people in developing world keeps on increasing and causing death and malnutrition. Food shortages, food insecurity or undernourishment has assumed a global dimension especially as climate change hits the globe with its negative impacts, with more severe cases recorded in the poor-resource African countries. Soil is the natural capital which drives the agricultural sector, being a strong-hole for crop/animal farming, apart-from being a medium for production o f raw materials which powers industrial and domestic production. The inherent quality ofsoil is impaired by various factors including climate variability like excessive rainfall, which ends-up leaching nutrients downstream, thereby resulting in contamina­ tion o f water bodies with fertilizer/agro-chemical residues. Like most tropical humid soils, the inherent quality of Nigerian soils is generally low, causing rapid degradation o f applied nutrients and total crop failure in extreme cases. This has most often been exacerbated by most prevalent land use/agricultural systems, coupled with the problem of over-grazing and indiscriminate deforestation, alongside rapid population expansion with conse­ quent urbanization and industrialization. For effective soil management, especially in the face ofclimate change, the needfor Climate-Smart Strategy (CSS) towards agricultural production becomes imperative, inother to find a Sustainable Approach (SA) to man’s drive towards food production for effective survival. For efficient maize (Zea mays L.) production, application o f mineral fertilizer becomes an important aspect for human/animal food production. Field experimentation was conducted at the Teaching and Research Farm o f the Cross River University o f Technology (Latitude 6° 06' N and Longitude 8° 18' E), to evaluate the potential o f Nitrogen ferti­ lizer as a Climate-Smart Approach (CSA) for sustainable maize production in the humid tropics. Maize seed variety: Ikom Local White were treated to one level o f Nitrogen fertilizer at 0.078 kg ha-1. The treatment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). The treatment were replicated four time to give a total o f sixteen (16) field plots. Data collection on plant growth parameters (number o f leaves and height o f maize) were subjected to Analysis o f Variance (ANOVA), while significant means among treatments were separated using Least Significant Difference (LSD) at 5% probability level. Result obtained showed that plots treated with 0.078 kg ha-1 o f Nitrogen fertilizer (N-Fertilizer) significantly (p<0.05) increase growth parameter o f maize over the control. Outcome o f the study concluded that 0.078 kg ha1 o f N-Fertilizer applied to Maize planted at 1m spacing between plants on bed increase crop growth, and acts as a CSA to remedy the rapid degradation of humid tropical soil productivity, and for environmental sustainability.

COMBATING TROPICAL SOIL DEGRADATION: THE ROLE OF NITROGEN FERTILIZER AS A CLIMATE-SMART STRATEGY TOWARDS MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.) PRODUCTIVE CULTIVATION