Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development Vol. 8(3), pp. 011-028, December 2019 ISSN 2327-3151 ©2019 Academe Research Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Fertilizer underuse in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Maize

Robert Moracha Ogeto^* and Gong Jiong

University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, 100029 China

*Corresponding author. Email: robertmoracha@gmail.com.

Accepted 19 December, 2019

Abstract

Fertilizer consumption especially in Sub-Saharan Africa countries continues to remain low as compared to other parts of the world. As a result, there has been stagnation and even declined yields across parts of Sub-Saharan Africa over several decades whereas countries that have increased their agricultural productivity have also considerably increased their use of fertilizer. In a bid to increase fertilizer use, a number of studies have been undertaken on the use of fertilizer in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, most of these studies have focused on domestic fertilizer prices and other factors without addressing farmer behaviour in response to changes in international fertilizer prices. This paper therefore examined the effect of international fertilizer prices on the use of fertilizer in maize production in selected African countries for the period 1990-2010 whose data was analyzed using fixed effects regression. Empirical results indicated that aggregate fertilizer demand was positively and significantly correlated with labour and maize seed but negatively and significantly correlated with general world fertilizer price, world phosphorous fertilizer prices and rainfall. On the demand of nutrient fertilizers, world fertilizer prices were negatively and significantly correlated with the demand of all the nutrient fertilizers. Labour and maize seed were positively and significantly correlated with nitrogen fertilizer use while rainfall had a negative and significant correlation with all the nutrient fertilizers. Labour, current and previous year’s maize producer prices were positively and significantly correlated with phosphorous use. Given the indication that fertilizer use was low despite its positive influence in maize output, it is recommended that strategies be put in place by relevant stakeholders in respective countries in a bid to boost aggregate and nutrient fertilizer use so as to further increase maize output and these could include price reduction strategies like subsidies and timely availability of fertilizer, reduction in import fee, clearance and warehouse charges at the ports of entry as a way of reducing the final market price.

Keywords. Fertilizer demand; world fertilizer prices; Sub-Saharan Africa