By Jeff Kapembwa
The second annual Fertiliser and Soil Summit hosted by Kenya closed its doors with African Heads of States and Government endorsing the Nairobi Declaration on fertiliser and soil health, prioritizing domestic fertiliser production and triple it in the next 10 years to boost agricultural production.
The soil in Africa, according to various studies by the United Nations and independent research studies, has withered and lost its nutrients to produce food compared to 30 years ago because of climatic effects, forcing the continent to resort to foreign fertilization to bolster soil nutrients.
After three-day deliberations by Heads of States and Governments, the summit themed: “Listen to the soil”, adopted the unwavering declaration under the leadership of President William Ruto of Kenya and the African Union through Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat to bolster local production of the input and ensure both inorganic and organic fertilizer were distributed to all needy farmers by 2034.
“We commit to tripling domestic production and distribution of certified quality organic and inorganic fertilisers by 2034 to improve access and affordability for smallholder farmers. This will be actualised through prioritising local production and blending of mineral fertilisers using locally available raw materials,” read the communique.
There is need to strengthen and uphold research and development on the utilisation of organic and inorganic fertilisers through the resuscitation of the seemingly moribund African Centre for Fertilizer Development in Harare, Zimbabwe, an effort that has been ignored over the years.
The summit recognised the opportunities that regional cooperation, coordination, and harmonisation of fertiliser policies and regulations can bring. The leaders acknowledged that the recent global fertiliser crisis has disproportionately affected Africa, with a year-on-year decline of 25 per cent in fertiliser consumption in 2022.
AU Commission chair, Faki Mahamat, argued that despite the adoption of the Abuja Declaration over 15 years ago during the first summit which sought to redress challenges in the sector fertiliser consumption in the continent increased to a paltry 18kg / ha from an average of 8kg / ha far less than half of the target of 50kg / ha espoused in the declaration.
“Africa is experiencing accelerated soil degradation in many ways, including through desertification and extreme weather events like floods as we are currently seeing in Kenya and Tanzania and across East Africa. Climate change is contributing immensely to reduced agricultural productivity in Africa,”
The current pace of soil degradation in Africa was alarming and reached a threshold requiring urgent and proactive attention and action from all interest groups including investment and good management. This will help to halt the degradation and commence effective soil health management.
“The Africa Union Commission is committed to addressing the issues of soil health in all African countries. This determination is what led us to develop the Soil Initiative for Africa (SIA) and the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan. While the Soil Initiative for Africa is a long-term framework aligned with our Agenda 2063, the Action Plan is the 10-year implementation plan,” the AU chairperson noted.
The leaders also endorsed the Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan and the Soil Initiative for Africa Framework as key guiding documents to harness multi-stakeholder partnerships and investments to drive policies, finance, research and development, markets, and capacity building for fertiliser and sustainable soil health management in Africa.
President William Ruto of Kenya challenged Africa to mobilise “domestic resources” unlike relying on foreign investment arguably to increase the capacity of countries and the continent to produce fertilisers, coupled with collaborative research and development, capacity building, as well as cross-country learning and sharing of best practices.
“These documents (Nairobi Declaration) aim to harness multi-stakeholder partnerships and investments to drive policies, finance, research and development, markets, and capacity building for fertiliser and sustainable soil health management in Africa,”
The summit, the host President, he was content, was timely noting that Africa has for long relied on food imports, a call for accelerating the progression of the Abuja Declaration 17 years ago which has remained not actualised.
“We have many issues to reflect on and resolve as a matter of urgency and this summit offers a perfect opportunity for this engagement. African farmers face many problems, including degraded soils, inadequate fertiliser application and extreme weather events like ongoing floods in eastern Africa and droughts in southern Africa. This disrupts agricultural production, despite the huge agricultural potential of the continent,” said President Ruto.
This, he contended, should not be the case considering Africa has over 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Ruto called upon fellow heads of State to join hands and explore the immense agricultural potential, which is key to the economic performance and growth of the continent.
President Hichilema from Zambia called for member states to seek to set up reliable fertiliser plants and overcome challenges faced in securing the input. The Zambian President stressed the urgent need for African leaders to pay attention to the effects of climate change, even as the continent focuses on soil health and fertiliser.
“Drawbacks of extreme climate events like floods on soil health should also concern us. It’s ironic that as Eastern Africa is experiencing floods, we in southern Africa are experiencing droughts,” he said
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa underscored the need to deliberately support and increase investment in agricultural initiatives by women and youth. The importance of using fertilisers that are crop-specific because each crop is unique and extracts nutrients from the soil at different levels must also be reiterated, according to President Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi.
Various leaders appended the Nairobi summit resolutions and committed to reversing land degradation and restoring soil health on at least 30 per cent of degraded soil by 2034 by deployment of innovative incentive mechanisms, including repurposing current fertiliser subsidy programs.
“We commit to promoting integrated soil and water conservation, planning, and management practices across agricultural sub-sectors and landscapes. We also agree to promote investments in irrigation as part of integrated soil and water resource management for enhancing nutrient-use efficiency and climate change resilience,” reads the Nairobi Declaration in part.
The declaration also commits the presidents to strengthening national, regional, and international collaborative research and extension systems to tackle soil health challenges and improve the quality of support to smallholder farmers practicing organic agriculture.
Discussions about financing fertilisers also took place, considering affordable fertiliser to farmers remains a major challenge across the continent hence the dismal uptake of the soil conditioner and widespread poor yields.
The leaders committed to fully operationalising the Africa Fertilizer Financing Mechanism (AFFM) to improve the production, procurement, and distribution of organic and inorganic fertilisers and soil health interventions.
“We commit to creating a multi-source soil health fund, for research, innovation, capacity building, and start-ups on fertiliser use and soil health actions. The fund to be part of the already existing Africa Fertilizer Financing Mechanism (AFFM), which is hosted by the African Development Bank (AfDB),”