From the blurb at Eldis for a document entitled Fertiliser subsidies and sustainable agricultural growth in Africa: current issues and empirical evidence from Malawi, Zambia, and Kenya.
It is argued that there are compelling rationales for “smart†fertiliser subsidy programmes in Africa. However, achieving these benefits depends greatly on how the programmes are implemented. The authors assert that the contribution of fertiliser subsidy programmes to reducing poverty and hunger would be higher if they could be designed and implemented so as to:
- target households with little ability to afford fertiliser
- target areas where applying fertiliser can actually contribute to yields
- promote the development of a commercial fertiliser distribution system rather than undercutting it
Not sure where I stand on this, to be honest. Fertilizers can be very good news, of course, but if they’re based on fossil fuels then a priori they are not likely to be sustainable. There has to be an overall move towards boosting soil fertility in other ways, making use of nitrogen fixing crops, green manures, bio-char, animal wastes and so on. But in the meantime, if you are going to use fertilizers (as I suspect you must) then those seem to be good policy prescriptions.
The full document is here.
What about a voucher-based “smart” subsidy programme in which farmers can spend their vouchers not (only) on industrial fertilizers, but (also) on organic ones?
I like the idea of a voucher being good for a quantity of N, P, K or whatever, no matter what form it is delivered in. But I doubt that it would catch on. Where would the surplus organic fertilisers come from? Guano mines?