[The North Africa Post] With an estimated 346 million people across Africa being negatively impacted by a severe food crisis, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a fertilizer boom is breaking out on the continent, even as environmental and green farming activists call for caution.
Africa has barely used fertilizers, as only 6% of the continent’s cultivated land is irrigated, and the average fertilizer consumption in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated at 17kg of nutrients per hectare of cropland, according to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra). That is only a drop in the ocean when compared with a world average fertilizer consumption of 135kg/ha. To that end, at the just-ended African Green Revolution Conference (AGRF) Summit in Kigali, Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, has recently urged Africa to increase fertilizer use, irrigation and thermal power in order to ensure food security.