The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has released a new policy brief on improving regional fertilizer markets in West Africa. Using a survey of four West African markets in Ghana, Mali, Senegal and Nigeria, the brief discusses the challenges the fertilizer industry faces. It also discusses the need for countries within the West African region to revamp fertilizer markets across the region in order to achieve its Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty and hunger by 2015.
Below are some of the findings and recommendations for improving Ghana’s fertilizer markets:
- Whereas the global fertilizer market is highly competitive, the survey of Ghana’s fertilizer market suggests that it is generally oligopolistic at the import level while being more competitive at the wholesale and retail levels.
- Constraints on the demand and supply-side cause the rise in fertilizer prices and make its use less profitable for farmers.
- To increase fertilizer availability and use, there is a need to establish a common regional fertilizer market that will encourage investment in regional production, reduce transaction costs, and improve accessibility and affordability by smallholder farmers.
- It is essential to improve the functioning of fertilizer markets in the country in order to successfully integrate other national markets into a larger regional market.
- This initiative would require the creation of a policy environment that is conducive to fertilizer market development by removing tariff and non-tariff barriers, eliminating direct government procurement of fertilizers for fertilizer support programs, and implement targeted fertilizer subsidy programs.
For more information, the full policy brief can be found on IFPRI's website.