Inorganic Fertiliser Use Among Smallholder Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for Input Subsidy Policies
Jacob Ricker‐Gilbert
Abstract
Abstract In recent years, use of inorganic fertiliser among smallholder farm households in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has increased, in large part due to the scale-up of input subsidy programmes (ISPs). However, fertiliser use efficiency for maize remains low, so the benefits of ISPs are often less than their costs. In order to make ISPs more cost-effective, sustainable and beneficial to smallholders, governments who implement ISPs should move towards implementing self-targeting mechanisms where more productive farmers opt into participation and relatively less productive farmers opt out. Such mechanisms include (i) increasing the amount of money that beneficiaries are required to contribute to acquire subsidised inputs and (ii) making receipt of subsidised inputs conditional on a household’s willingness to implement soil fertility management practices that can increase the amount of maize produced per kilogram of fertiliser in future. Limited resource farmers who cannot provide complementary inputs to subsidised fertiliser would likely be better served by a cash transfer programme rather than an input subsidy.