Agriculture Stakeholders Push For Fertilisers’ Use To Boost Food Security In Africa
By Jean-Pierre Afadhali
Africa’s experts and policymakers are discussing ways to boost fertiliser use and soil productivity at the African Union Summit in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health summit that started on Tuesday, this week, is set to evaluate the state of Africa’s soil health, while reviewing the progress made to boost Fertilizer consumption in Africa to the 50kg/ha target.
Key items on the agenda include a Nairobi Declaration, a 10-year Fertilizer Action Plan, a Soil Initiative for Africa document – and a mechanism to finance the Action Plan.
H.E. Amb. Josefa Sacko, African Union Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment said in her opening speech Africa falls short of the Abuja Declaration targets. « Fertiliser consumption in Africa has only risen from 8kg/ha to below 25 kg.ha since 2006, far below the 50 kg/ha target.»
At the opening session of the experts session, different speakers made emphasis on the need for regional cooperation in fertilizer policy, research and development, investment pooling for production capacity, facilitating cross-border trade, and promoting collaborative research, capacity building, and sharing of best practices for agricultural development.
Stakeholders are discussing Africa’s recent decline in soil quality of farmland and exploring scalable models from best practices that demonstrate the value of supporting the fertilizer value chain to facilitate access to quality fertilizers tailored to soil and crop-specific needs and good agricultural practices by farmers.
A significant $15billion of private sector investment will be needed to increase the local manufacturing of mineral fertilizers. For accelerated impact, the target is to triple the local production of organic and inorganic fertilizers by 2033.
The recommended use of fertilizers is 50kg (nutrients) per hectare.
According to official data, only 10 countries in Africa have surpassed the recommended quantity.
Morocco 55.29, Eswatini 57.77, Botswana 59.27 -Kenya 60.66 -Zambia 63.90 -Malawi 96.74, South Africa 104.64, Mauritius 186.50, Seychelles 542.47, Egypt 542.57
Frank Tumwebaze, Uganda minister of Agriculture said good practices and technologies can help African farmers manage soil better. Tumwenaze added that 33 percent of earth soil is degraded. Crop yields are only a third to the global average.
Challenges
Amid calls for increasing use of fertilizer, African countries face various problems such as low investment in local fertiliser production, fertilizer import is also capital intensive, low private sector in fertiliser and acute land degradation.
Additionally, 65 percent of crop land is also said to be degraded, land degradation costs $ 68 billion a year.
Fertilizer distribution, heavy reliance on imported fertilizers are other challenges the continent's agriculture faces.
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