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The fertilizer industry is characterized by high levels of concentration along the supply chain. According to the International Fertilizer Development Center, nine countries control more than 50 percent of nitrogen (ammonia, urea) and phosphate (DAP/MAP) production capacity, while only five countries control 79 percent of potash (MOP) production capacity. Developing regions such as Africa south of the Sahara are also highly dependent on imported fertilizer. In addition, the level of fertilizer use in Africa south of the Sahara remains far below other developing regions (around 10kg.

According to FAO estimates, approximately 1.3 billion tonnes of food gets lost or wasted every year around the world. These losses occur all along the food value chain, from farm to fork, and understanding exactly where they occur for specific commodities and in specific geographic locations can go a long way in helping researchers and policymakers design interventions to reduce them. Such a reduction in food loss is an important part of the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG12.

According to a new technical report from IFPRI’s Malawi Strategy Support Program (MSSP), despite the fact that Malawi has exceeded the 10 percent agricultural investment goal set forth by the CAADP, the country’s agricultural productivity has remained stagnant in recent years and food insecurity and undernutrition remain rampant.

Over the past decade, both the scale of and the access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) - including mobile phones, audio-visual communication, digital technologies, and internet services - have grown considerably in Africa south of the Sahara. The potential benefits of ICTs for the region’s agricultural sector, and its poor farming households, are especially important, as Africa south of the Sahara has the lowest rates of agricultural productivity and the highest rates of undernutrition in the world.

Subsidies to promote fertilizer use have become a popular policy in Africa south of the Sahara, aimed at increasing the region’s lagging agricultural production. However, new research from Ghana , published in Food Security , suggest that fertilizer subsidies alone may not be enough to encourage greater fertilizer application and increase farm productivity.