Module 4 - Promoting Efficient and Sustainable Fertilizer Use in Africa

Increased use of mineral fertilizer has played a critical role in many developing countries that have experienced high and sustained levels of agricultural productivity growth. Policy makers in Sub-Saharan Africa face a major challenge in deciding how to promote increased fertilizer use. This investment note is grounded in the assumption that viable private sector-led markets for fertilizer will have to be developed if fertilizer use is to increase sustainably in Sub-Saharan Africa. The task will not be easy. On the demand side as well as on the supply side, fertilizer exhibits a number of characteristics that complicate the emergence of viable private sector-led markets. These include the strong seasonality in demand for fertilizer and the highly dispersed nature of that demand, the riskiness of using fertilizer, the lack of purchasing power among many potential fertilizer users, the bulkiness of many fertilizer products, and the need to achieve large throughput volumes in fertilizer procurement and distribution to capture economies of scale. Overcoming these challenges will require a concerted effort involving coordinated interventions in a number of areas.

Why Invest in Promoting Increased Fertilizer Use in Africa?

It is widely recognized that achieving rapid agricultural productivity growth is essential to raising overall economic growth in Africa⁸  and meeting the Millennium Development Goals, especially those related to reducing poverty and hunger (see, for example, NEPAD 2001, UN Millennium Project 2005, and World Bank 2005). There is also widespread agreement that improved soil fertility is needed to stimulate agricultural productivity growth in Africa (Crawford et al., forthcoming; FAO 2004; FAO, forthcoming). Low use of mineral fertilizer is one of the principal factors explaining lagging agricultural productivity growth in Africa relative to other regions. In 2002, the average intensity of fertilizer use in Africa (8 kilograms per hectare) was still much lower than in other developing regions (78 kilograms per hectare in Latin America, 96 in East and Southeast Asia, and 101 in South Asia). Even adjusting for differences in agroecological conditions and cropping patterns, fertilizer use is much lower in Africa than elsewhere, and yields are correspondingly lower.

For the foreseeable future, the welfare of rural populations throughout much of Africa will be tied to agriculture. Agriculture is the backbone of the rural economy in most African countries, generating a significant share of gross domestic product and providing by far the largest source of rural employment. All too often, however, agricultural growth has been disappointing. In many African countries, value added per capita in agriculture has risen very slowly for the past 20 years; in other countries, it has fallen. Across the region as a whole, food production gains have not kept pace with population growth, resulting in declining per capita production of food staples. Poor soil fertility is a leading cause of the continuing food insecurity in Africa, which suggests that programs that succeed in restoring soil fertility levels can deliver significant economic, social, and environmental benefits, especially to the poor.