About AfricaFertilizer.org
AfricaFertilizer.org is a global Internet forum created to disseminate and exchange information on various aspects of fertilizer, soil fertility and related agricultural issues that impact Africa. Such information is being used to initiate and fuel the African Green Revolution that hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers so desperately need and deserve.
AfricaFertilizer.org was created and is hosted by IFDC, an international public organization dedicated to global food security, the alleviation of hunger and poverty, environmental protection and economic development and self-sufficiency. Its focus is to increase and sustain agricultural productivity in developing countries through effective and environmentally sound crop nutrient technology and agribusiness expertise.
The Green Revolution, which tripled staple crop production in Asia and Latin America, bypassed Sub-Saharan Africa – the world’s only region in which per capita food production has decreased over the past 30 years. Africa is plagued with chronic food insecurity and poverty. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for a “uniquely African Green Revolution – a revolution that will help the continent in its quest for dignity and peace.”
Soil health is declining rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa. A steady annual growth in population is forcing farmers to grow crop after crop on the same land, “mining” the soil while giving no nutrients back. The continent loses an estimated $4 billion in soil nutrients per year. The highest rates of nutrient depletion – more than 60 kilograms/hectare (kg/ha) yearly – are in Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. Those countries, among the world’s poorest, comprise 40 percent of the region’s farmland.
Fertilizer use in Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s lowest, with less than 8 kg per hectare annually. African farmers must have mineral fertilizers to bring life back to the depleted soils and to feed the continent. But small-scale farmers, who comprise the vast majority of the farming population, have little access to fertilizers, and few can afford them. The African farmer must pay two to four times the average world market price for fertilizers.
The Africa Fertilizer Summit, held in June 2006, was the largest and most comprehensive effort ever to address Africa’s soil fertility crisis and generate an African Green Revolution. The Summit’s 1,100 participants included five current or former African Heads of State, ministers of agriculture and international agricultural leaders.
Summit participants wrote the historic Abuja Declaration on Fertilizer for an African Green Revolution. The document calls for governments to address the soil health crisis by making available the mineral and organic fertilizers that Africa’s hungry soils need. The Declaration also calls for the elimination of all cross-border taxes and tariffs on fertilizer and encourages its local manufacture, using Africa’s substantial fertilizer raw materials.
AfricaFertilizer.org serves stakeholders in the movement to make Africa self-sufficient in food production, including farm organizations, researchers, policymakers, extension specialists, the agro-input industry, the private sector, donors and funding agencies and the media.
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