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Crop yields in Africa south of the Sahara are generally low, in large part because of low fertilizer use. A recent study of six countries in the region showed that only 35% of farmers applied fertilizer. There are many possible reasons why farmers do not use fertilizer. They may be unaware of its effectiveness; or have degraded soils that do not respond to fertilizer; they may not have the cash to purchase it; or unpredictable rainfall may make such investments risky. Local fertilizer prices may also cut into potential profits for many farmers.

According to a recent alert from FEWS Net , southern Africa has seen a below average start to the 2019-2020 agricultural season, with rainfall only 55-85 percent of normal levels from October through early December. This decrease in precipitation has negatively impacted planting and germination rates throughout much of the region. The most impacted areas include Lesotho, central and southern Mozambique, Madagascar, South Africa, and western and southern Zambia. The situation will only be further exacerbated by expected continued below average rainfall through May 2020.

By: Swati Malhotra, IFPRI

As crop prices move throughout the year, they influence households’ consumption decisions, farmers’ production decisions, and traders’ marketing decisions. As such, it is important to understand price seasonality in local contexts in order to design appropriate policy interventions. A new working paper and policy note from IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program look at such price movements in grain prices in Kebbi state, Nigeria.

This post originally appeared on VoxDev . By Tanguy Bernard, Alan de Janvry, Samba Mbaye, and Elisabeth Sadoulet.

Agriculture market reforms that allow quality recognition enable farmers to capture higher prices and lead to adoption of better technology