Call for targeted fertiliser and soil health strategy to unlock the continent’s agricultural potential

Estimates indicate that the cost of land degradation due to poor soil health ranges between $850 and $1,400 per year per person, with a global cost of between $6.3 and $10.6 trillion annually.

Reduced soil fertility not only reduces crop productivity, but also exacerbates the impacts of climate change by reducing the land's resilience and adaptive capacity.

Since the 1960s, land degradation in Africa has led to a significant expansion of agricultural land by about 300 percent, compared to 25 percent elsewhere. This has occurred at the expense of forests, wetlands and other fragile systems. This expansion is due to the need to compensate for the loss of productivity resulting from decreased soil fertility.

This week, the African Union and the Government of Kenya hosted a Heads of State Summit in Nairobi, Kenya to delve deeper into the importance of soil health and fertilizer use in African food systems.

Many meetings have been held, and will continue to be held in Africa and the world to address various aspects of the environment and its sustainability, and in all these conversations, here are the priority areas that I believe all African governments must address as critical policy areas:

Governments should develop and implement policies that support smart fertilizer subsidies and targeted inputs to improve soil health. Smart subsidies can be used to help farmers transition from traditional agriculture to a more sustainable agricultural system.

In addition, investments targeting the restoration of degraded lands can be used to enhance productivity as well as to improve carbon sequestration, biodiversity, as well as reduce climate risks. Studies have shown that the combined use of organic and mineral fertilizers can increase rainwater yields by 50 to 200 percent, with a clear path to reducing climate risks to crops.

We need to prioritize land tenure policies to enable farmers to protect their land and landscapes. Stronger land use and protection policies should be adopted to ensure sustainable use of this limited resource. There is plenty of evidence that farmers protect land from erosion and other physical damage when incentives are right. There is no doubt that granting land ownership to farmers is one of the many incentives to help reduce the high rate of ecosystem degradation and erosion.

African governments must invest in improving access to organic and mineral fertilizers to promote soil health. This can be done by encouraging local production, distribution and intra-trade of fertilizers, and increasing the production and use of lime to manage soil acidity. Governments need to ensure affordability and availability of fertilizers as this is essential to replenish soil nutrients and maintain agricultural productivity. Nitrogen inputs need to be increased by at least four-fold to close the productivity gap in Africa. Acid soil logging increases crop yields by 35 to 50 percent, and can have an additional 20 to 25 percent effect when combined with carbon sources including green manure and manure.

As a continent, we need to invest in functional extension systems and create capacity to leverage locally relevant soil health and fertilizer management techniques and practices. By providing advisory services to smallholder farmers and creating regional knowledge-sharing networks, this will enable farmers to make informed decisions and adopt best practices for soil health and fertilizer use. It is important to note that empowering farmers through farm-level innovation is critical to enhancing soil health and fertilizer use.

AGRA and its partners have demonstrated that it is possible to reduce the farmer extension ratio from 1:3000 to 1:500 and the last mile from more than 22 kilometers to less than eight kilometers on average across 11 countries. This enhances the last mile and allows farmers to access information and technologies. Today, farmers producing five metric tons per hectare can be found in each of these countries – but this must be scaled up and embedded in a sustainable private sector ecosystem.

African governments must support local research capacity and infrastructure, including functioning soil laboratories. They must also empower and leverage private sector organizations, and facilitate integration between research institutions, universities and extension services, to enable the development and availability of new technologies to accelerate the response to soil health challenges. An evaluation of investments in research by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research found that over the past 50 years, there has been a return of $10 for every dollar invested in research and development.

Africa has made some impressive progress over the past two years. The continent now produces nearly 30 million metric tons of fertilizer annually, twice what it currently consumes. This increase in local fertilizer manufacturing comes as a result of private sector investments worth more than $15 billion, which focus primarily on local production.

Second, public-private partnerships have been formed to address challenges associated with fertilizer and nutrient use efficiency, research and development, and improving research infrastructure such as soil laboratories. Third, average farm-level fertilizer use has doubled over the past 18 years since the Abuja Declaration.

However, climate change and external factors such as the war between Ukraine and Russia and the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated the challenges faced by African farmers. These external factors have further hindered or reversed early gains in enhancing crop productivity, posing additional obstacles to agricultural development in Africa.

To address all these challenges and opportunities and more, the African Union and its partners are organizing the conference African Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit (AFSH) 2024Which will be held this week from May 7 to 9, 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya. The summit will bring together relevant stakeholders to highlight the critical role of fertilizers and soil health in stimulating sustainable pro-poor productivity growth in African agriculture.

The summit is expected to negotiate an action plan focused on fertilizers and soil health in Africa, provide policy directions and concrete recommendations that will guide African governments in the next decade, create an operational roadmap to ensure effective implementation of the action plan, and mobilize policymakers. Development organizations as well as other stakeholders work to improve soil health and fertilizer use, strengthen the private sector as well as address the challenges of landscapes and systems for the efficient use of nutrients and water resources.

By approving the Action Plan to Improve Soil Health and Fertilizer Use in African Agriculture, leaders and stakeholders will demonstrate their commitment to implementation. The Action Plan will guide policy decisions and interventions in the next decade. Sustained pro-poor productivity growth and economic development in the agricultural sector will only happen when leaders are committed and willing to be bold about the necessary commitment and changes the continent must make.

It is my hope that the summit will pave the way for increased cooperation, knowledge sharing and investments in soil health and fertilizer use, ultimately unleashing the potential of African agriculture. We are constantly reminded of the need to balance human needs and creativity with environmental needs, fragility and finitude.

For Africa, let us be intentional and do what is right for us today but also for future generations on this continent. The good news is that we have a lot to learn and are trying to do so when there are amazing new tools in search, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence, among others, which, if exploited well, can make our economic transformation journey much less painful.

Written by Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President, AGRA.