Increasing agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa during times of volatile prices and a changing climate

Increasing agricultural productivity among smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) faces numerous threats including conflict, input and output price volatility, and climate change. Inorganic fertiliser is a key input that smallholder farmers need to use to boost staple crop yields. However, inorganic fertiliser prices spiked globally in 2021/22 due to COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The effect of the fertiliser price spike was longer and more pronounced in SSA than it was in the world as a whole. In this paper, I discuss factors that affected local fertiliser prices before, during, and after the price spike of 2021/22 in six African countries. I then discuss Nigeria and Zambia’s recent efforts to increase domestic inorganic fertiliser production from fossil fuels. Finally, I discuss the implications of fertiliser policy on climate change, and how increasing agricultural productivity through better fertiliser use efficiency is the only feasible near-term solution to boost food production in SSA while dealing with the crisis of a changing climate. I conclude with policy recommendations.