africa

Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
Figure 28.1: Ghana, Proportion of Population in Poverty, 1991-2006
Agricultural output per agricultural population is just not moving overall in Africa.
Though there is actually a lot of output growth, it has come mostly from extensification—that
is, bringing new land into cultivation. So the picture is relatively dismal.
Modern seeds are used by a very small fraction of the population. Irrigation essentially
doesn’t exist for smallholder farmers. Fertilizer use is very low. While North
Americans use about 200 kilograms/hectare, Africans use about 20 kilograms/
hectare, and even less in a lot of places.
Now we are getting down to the sorts of questions I can start thinking about. Let’s
start with a really simple question, which is an important step towards understanding
the economic and social situation of small-scale farmers in Africa. Why is fertilizer
use so low?
Some of the answers are pretty clear. Fertilizer prices are high. Infrastructure is bad.
Distance from the producing centers of fertilizer is far. Population density is low in
lots of areas, and so the transport costs of getting fertilizer to farmers are really high.
But, even at market prices, in many places in Africa the use of fertilizer appears to be
profitable. That’s controversial, but it appears on average to be profitable for a lot of
farmers to use much more fertilizer than they are using. We have examples from a
lot of places across Africa, including in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, and Senegal.
I have asked a lot of farmers in Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria about why they don’t
use fertilizer. They all say, “I’d love to use fertilizer but I’ve got no money”. That is
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