Agricultural Inputs

The production of safe, nutritious food to feed Africa’s growing and urbanizing population in an economically and environmentally sustainable way will require reliable, affordable clean energy sources. How can Africa ensure both availability of and access to such energy, particularly in rural areas?

This post originally appeared on IFPRI.org.

A new report from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) finds that millions of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) source directly from millions more smallholder farmers across Africa South of the Sahara. These SMEs, often led by women, include food processors, wholesalers, and retailers. SMEs provide a range of services, from transport and logistics to the sale of inputs such as fertilizer and seed to farmers. Their activity is driving a “quiet revolution” across African agriculture, connecting smallholder farmers to commercial markets at an unprecedented rate.

By: Swati Malhotra, IFPRI

This post originally appeared on the IFPRI.org blog and the GSSP blog. 

It is no secret that fertilizer subsidies are back in vogue across Africa south of the Sahara as the preferred tool for governments trying to boost incomes of poor smallholder farmers by increasing farm production and agricultural productivity. The financial burden of fertilizer subsidies is also widely recognized, exacerbated by the expense of improving the accuracy of targeting, as discussed in Jayne et al, 2018.