It’s estimated that the world’s population is expected to increase to 9 billion by 2050, which implies the demand for food increasing by 70% impacting food security. Based on projections for Africa the continent’s current population of about 1.3 billion people nearly double to 2.5 billion by 2050.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2020 report, more than 690 million people— 8.9% of the world’s population couldn’t afford food, were facing starvation. This represents an increase of 60 million people lacking food in 5 years.
These trends mean that market demand for food will continue to grow more so for a continent like Africa, which is vulnerable to climate change, further intensifying food insecurity.
A possibility that by 2030, the number of people without food will reach 840 million globally which means that Sustainable Development Goal 2, of achieving Zero Hunger by 2030, might be a hard target if execution is overlooked.
As researched by United Nations, over 281 million Africans are not food secure with one of the biggest threats being climate change. The Climate crisis has worsened the droughts causing millions of Africans to suffer from malnutrition and starvation.
Mainly these effects of climate change have reduced the yields of food crops such as maize, a staple in most African countries.
It’s evident that the recent global shocks, escalating feedstock prices, fertilizers prices and availability, and geopolitical tensions, have further exposed the soft underbelly that is Africa’s dependence on international markets for its fertilization needs.
For a continent with an estimated 33 million smallholder farmer population, we are still faced with limited capacity for the production of fertilizers. The high Capex associated with establishing such facilities will mean Africa remains a net importer of fertilizers from global sources in the short term.
Perhaps the establishment of regional hubs vis-à-vis phosphate supply from North Africa, Urea supply from Nigeria, and Potash supply from central Africa coupled with the recently ratified free trade area agreement, could be a solution worth exploring. The push for a common market under the African Continental Free Trade Area will no doubt enhance the free movement of fertilizers and reduce the per capita cost to our farmers. Such an approach will result in higher yields and lower food prices
The war in Ukraine has been a major global concern, as the African Development Bank warned that food production in Africa is set to decline by 20% because of fertilizer shortages. The net effect of “expensive” fertilizer is the high cost of food.
In spite of these challenges, there have been several initiatives to improve the availability and access to fertilizers at national and regional levels. For instance, the Kenya government had effected an emergency subsidy fertilizer program that has lowered the cost of planting fertilizer from KES 5,500/50kg bag ($45.1) to KES 3,500/50kg bag ($28).
Development partner-led initiatives like Sustain Africa are working with national stakeholders to avail fertilizers at a cheaper-than-market rate level, OCP Africa’s Fertilizer Relief program has secured over 0.5m tons of fertilizer at discounted prices. All these interventions are expected to boost food productivity and stem a looming food security crisis in the coming months.
As AfricaFertilizer.Org, our mandate remains to illuminate fertilizer market systems to spur data-driven decisions for African food systems in the days to come. Evidence-backed decision-making at the policy and business levels will ensure the availability, timely distribution, and proper use of this critical input; after all, ad-hoc decision-making around fertilizer could be the difference between plenty and starvation within our borders.