“Increasing fertilizer use in Africa is crucial both for eradicating rural poverty and increasing agricultural production”, Lennart Båge says at the Africa Fertilizer Summit

About 500 delegates from African governments, farmers’ organizations, development partners and the fertilizer industry took part in the Africa Fertilizer Summit held in Abuja, Nigeria from 9 to 13 June 2006. The summit was organized by the African Union (AU), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and implemented by the International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC). Its purpose was to boost fertilizer use across the continent and trigger a Green Revolution in Africa.

In the Abuja Declaration on Fertilizer for African Green Revolution, issued at the end of the summit, African leaders declared fertilizer, from both inorganic and organic sources, “a strategic commodity without borders” and resolved that “the African Union Member States will accelerate the timely access of farmers to fertilizers”. Twelve key measures to foster an African Green Revolution were adopted.

The first of these was a resolution by the AU member states to increase the level of fertilizer use from the current average of 8 kilograms per hectare, to an average of at least 50 kilograms per hectare by 2015. As an immediate measure, the declaration recommended “the elimination of taxes and tariffs on fertilizer and on fertilizer raw materials”.

The summit also agreed on an action plan to operationalize the declaration. The action plan has five main elements:

• development of agro-dealer networks across rural Africa
• establishment of national agricultural input credit guarantee facilities
• use of “smart” subsidies to ensure that poor smallholders have access to fertilizers
• creation of regional fertilizer procurement and distribution centres, removal of trade barriers and promotion of local fertilizer production
• establishment of an Africa Fertilizer Development Financing Mechanism by the African Development Bank

In his address to the heads of state and government representatives who attended the summit on 13 June, Lennart Båge said, “This is your Green Revolution, and the events of the past four days have shown how much will there is across Africa to solve the continent’s problems and to solve them now; in a way that is inclusive, forward-looking and businesslike”.

 

IFAD took part in the Africa Fertilizer Summit with the explicit aim of ensuring that the needs of African smallholders, particularly the poorest, are taken into account in regional and national action plans drawn up to boost fertilizer use. IFAD was one of the major sponsors of the summit, together with partners like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom.

During a side-event held at the summit on 11 June, farmers’ organizations presented their common standpoint on the pivotal role of family smallholdings and mixed farming systems in African agriculture. IFAD participated in the panel discussion, where the role small farmers play in managing soil fertility was stressed, together with their struggle for sustainable agriculture and food security.