Africa’s fertiliser economy is being squeezed by inefficiency at home and conflict abroad
By Alphonce Maina
FERTILISER HAS long been treated as a straightforward remedy for Africa’s low crop yields: apply more nutrients, harvest more food. That assumption is under strain. Across the continent, attention is shifting from fertiliser access to fertiliser efficiency, as governments and farmers confront weak soil response and rising input costs.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that sub-Saharan Africa remains the world’s lowest fertiliser-using region, with application rates far below global averages. Yet the problem is not only quantity. It is also conversion. The International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) estimates that in many African farming systems, less than half of applied nitrogen is absorbed by crops, with the remainder lost to the environment.
That inefficiency is becoming more costly as global markets tighten.
Global shock: Iran conflict and fertiliser volatility
The escalation of conflict involving Iran in 2026 has disrupted shipping and energy-linked trade routes through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical corridor for fertiliser and natural gas flows. The result has been higher freight costs and greater volatility in nitrogen fertiliser markets.
According to ICIS, a commodities intelligence firm, “war-related risk premiums have increased freight costs and disrupted established fertiliser trade flows through key Middle Eastern shipping corridors”. Nitrogen fertilisers are particularly exposed because production is closely tied to natural gas prices and concentrated in a small number of exporting regions.
World Bank commodity data indicate that fertiliser prices remain structurally above pre-pandemic levels, with geopolitical disruptions adding further upward pressure.
Africa’s import dependence and price transmission
For Africa, the shock is transmitted quickly. Most countries are net importers of fertiliser, particularly nitrogen and phosphate-based products. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) notes that “fertiliser price spikes in global markets tend to reduce application rates in import-dependent developing regions and can quickly translate into lower yields and higher food prices”.
This transmission mechanism is especially visible in East Africa, where fertiliser imports are essential for staple crop production systems. Kenya, for example, relies heavily on imported fertiliser for maize production, leaving domestic supply vulnerable to external price swings.
Policy response
Governments have responded with fertiliser subsidy programmes aimed at stabilising retail prices. Kenya has expanded such interventions in recent years, but the fiscal burden has increased alongside global price volatility.
Officials in Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture have acknowledged in policy briefings that improved fertiliser access has not consistently translated into proportional yield gains, highlighting persistent inefficiencies in nutrient use and soil management.
The African Development Bank argues that the long-term solution lies elsewhere. It has stated that “sustained productivity gains require investment in soil health systems, fertiliser blending capacity and agricultural extension services rather than continued reliance on blanket input subsidies”.
The efficiency gap
At the core of the problem is nutrient-use efficiency. The IFDC estimates that nitrogen efficiency in many African systems remains below 50 percent, meaning more than half of applied fertiliser does not contribute to plant growth.
Losses occur through volatilisation, leaching and runoff, often exacerbated by degraded soils and limited access to soil testing. Agronomists also point to inconsistent rainfall patterns, which reduce the predictability of crop response to fertiliser.
In practice, fertiliser is frequently applied without precise calibration to soil needs, reflecting gaps in extension services and agronomic information.
Market adjustment
Input suppliers are responding by shifting towards more targeted fertiliser products. Blended fertilisers and micronutrient-enriched formulations are expanding in Kenya and Ethiopia, where soil mapping has revealed widespread nutrient deficiencies.
These products aim to improve yield response per unit of fertiliser applied. However, they typically come at higher upfront cost, creating affordability constraints for smallholder farmers with limited access to credit.
Agribusiness analysts note that this is driving a gradual segmentation of the market between farmers able to adopt precision inputs and those reliant on standardised fertiliser products.
Environmental pressure
Fertiliser efficiency is also becoming a climate issue. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has identified agricultural nitrogen losses as a major source of nitrous oxide emissions, a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 273 times that of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.
Improving efficiency therefore offers both productivity and climate benefits. Yet the relationship is not linear. Higher efficiency can reduce emissions per unit of output but may also encourage increased total fertiliser use if yields and profitability rise, creating a rebound effect.
Farmer behaviour
At farm level, fertiliser decisions are shaped less by optimisation than by risk management. Limited access to credit, weak insurance coverage and rainfall variability lead many smallholders to under-apply fertiliser as a hedge against potential loss.
A Kenyan agricultural economist cited in regional policy research notes that fertiliser use decisions are “closely tied to uncertainty in rainfall and input prices, not only agronomic recommendations”.
This behaviour helps explain why system-level efficiency gains do not automatically translate into higher fertiliser consumption or higher yields.
Distributional effects
The shift towards fertiliser efficiency is reshaping value distribution across the agricultural economy.
Winners include fertiliser blenders, input distributors and agritech firms offering soil diagnostics and advisory services. These actors benefit from a transition towards precision agriculture and data-driven input use.
Losers risk being smallholder farmers without access to soil testing, credit or advisory services. They face rising input prices and limited capacity to adopt efficiency-enhancing technologies, widening productivity gaps within rural economies.
Efficiency as a measure of resilience
Fertiliser efficiency is no longer a technical sub-issue in agricultural policy. It has become a central variable linking food security, fiscal pressure and geopolitical risk.
IFPRI summarises the structural exposure succinctly: “low-income import-dependent countries face disproportionate vulnerability to fertiliser market shocks, with productivity outcomes highly sensitive to input availability and price volatility”.
The Iran-related conflict has only sharpened that reality. In an increasingly unstable global environment, the question for African agriculture is no longer simply how much fertiliser is used, but how effectively it is converted into food under conditions of persistent external shock.
