Are fertiliser subsidies necessary? Yes, but…

Many African farm households depend on land cultivated so many times that its fertility is hugely reduced. Smallholder farmers must consistently raise the productivity of their land to escape from poverty and produce enough food for their family.

Improved seeds can help, but unless the crop is well fed, itwill never reach its potential. Purchased fertiliser is often essential but is one of the most costly cash inputs for poorfarmers. Furthermore:

• Some isolatedfarmers have difficulties reaching fertiliser suppliers.
• Farmers are often unwilling to risk buyingadditional inputs unless they have a guaranteed market for their produce.
• Fertiliserrecommendations typically ignore the high variation in soil and climatic conditions.Consequently, the yield response to fertilisers often declines, reducing profitability.
• Blanket fertilisersubsidies (a subsidy on the price of fertiliser) simply obscure these problemsand inefficiencies at enormous and unnecessary expense.

In 1998, with Malawifacing a food crisis, the Universal Starter Pack programme gave every smallholderenough appropriate maize seeds and best quality fertiliser to plant 0.1 hectaresof land (an area-based subsidy). For two years, maize production:

• increased by an average of 125-150 kilos perhousehold
• reached approximately2.5 million tons each year - 500,000 tons higher than ever before or since, and67 percent higher than the twenty-year average.

In terms of cost effectiveness, the programme performedextremely well compared to blanket fertiliser subsidies and subsidisedcommercial food imports. Compared to food aid, the programme rewardedinitiative and good husbandry, facilitating development rather than dependence.

As a long-term development plan, this approach provided areliable exit strategy. However, after two years, the programme changed.Instead of providing seeds and fertiliser best suited to local environmentaland economic circumstances (best bets), the programme provided whatever wascheap and available. This change aimed to help very poor people produce atleast some extra food, but the programme was no longer a development tool to reducechronic food insecurity. The programme changed because the original pack was seenby key donors as disrupting agricultural inputs markets. In fact, fewrecipients were involved with this market as they were too poor.

Starter Packs should still be considered as an alternativeto blanket fertiliser subsidies. To improvethe programme, the team behind the Starter Pack programme recommended buildingon the Kenya-based Farm Inputs Promotion Programme (FIPS), formerly theSustainable Community Orientated Development Programme, and:  

• Making small packets of improved seeds andfertiliser available through local dealers so that farmers can purchase inputswhen they have cash available. A recent review of FIPS in Kenya showed thishelps farmers diversify their incomes as food security increases.
• Supporting well-organisedfarmer field schools enables farmers to experiment with new technologies (suchas best seed and fertiliser combinations) and share experiences in a relativelyrisk-free situation.

Sadly, these developments were never implemented, largely dueto the decision to change the programme to a ‘safety net’ rather than a long-termdevelopment project. The revised safety nets programme has now been terminated;an enhanced ‘starter packs’ proposal is being developed (including componentsfrom FIPS).