In their Abuja Declaration the Ministers agreed to :

Develop agrodealers (rural stockists) across rural Africa

Establish national agricultural input credit guarantee facilities

Setup “smart” subsidies for the poor and vulnerable

Organise regional fertilizer procurement and distribution centres ; remove trade barriers ; promote local fertilizer manufacturing Set up an Africa fertilizer development financing mechanism

The Africa Fertilizer Summit - a special Africa Union Summit of the Heads of State and Government - was chaired by Nigeria’s President Obasanjo.

Heads of State from across Africa attended, together with heads of Regional Economic Communities, major African and international development organisations, fertilizer importers and distributors, representatives of the global fertilizer industry, members of the research and scientific community and African farmers.

Immediate steps to solve fertilizer crisis

NEPAD has declared that the vision of economic development in Africa must be based on raising and sustaining higher rates of economic growth (7 per cent per year). To realise this vision, the African Heads of State and Government adopted NEPAD’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which calls for 6% annual growth in agricultural production, as a framework for the restoration of agricultural growth, food security and rural development in Africa.

Africa’s farmers face a variety of constraints including low productivity, limited access to new agricultural technologies and weak markets. Without adequate inputs, farmers often cannot meet the food needs of their own families, much less those of a rapidly growing population.

To feed themselves and their countries, farmers will need to shift from low-yielding, extensive land practices to more intensive, higher-yielding practices, with increased use of improved seeds, fertilizers and irrigation.

A move toward reducing hunger on the continent must begin by addressing its severely depleted soils. Due to decades of soil nutrient mining, Africa’s soils have become the poorest in the world.

It is estimated that the continent loses the equivalent of over $4 billion worth of soil nutrients per year, severely eroding its ability to feed itself. Yet farmers have neither access to nor can they afford the fertilizers needed to add life to their soils. And no region of the world has been able to expand agricultural growth rates, and thus tackle hunger, without increasing fertilizer use.

In Africa, use of fertilizer averages only eight kilograms per hectare. In short, Africa is trapped in a fertilizer crisis, this is only 10% of the world average. Addressing Africa’s fertilizer crisis requires urgent and bold actions. Africa is ready for the Green Revolution. African leaders have shown their strong and unanimous commitment to achieving the African Green Revolution by taking immediate actions to solve Africa’s fertilizer crisis.

Details of the Abuja Declaration

Recognising that Africa needs a Green Revolution which is long overdue and yet constitutes the way of getting African farmers out of the poverty trap by achieving food security and other relevant Millennium Development Goals.

Recognising that fertilizer is crucial for achieving an African Green Revolution in the face of the rapidly rising population and declining soil fertility ;

Realising that most farmers in Africa are poor, have virtually no access to fertilizer and that the poorest of them urgently need special attention ;

Recognising the urgent need for a strategic investment program to increase the availability and use of fertilizer along with other inputs to usher in the Green Revolution on the African continent ;

Declare fertilizer, from both inorganic and organic sources, a strategic commodity without borders ; and

Resolve that the African Union Member States will accelerate the timely access of farmers to fertilizers as follows :

Given the strategic importance of fertilizer in achieving the African Green Revolution to end hunger, the African Union Member States resolve to increase the level of use of fertilizer from the current average of 8 kilograms per hectare to an average of at least 50 kilograms per hectare by 2015.

By mid-2007, the African Union Member States and the Regional Economic Communities should take appropriate measures to reduce the cost of fertilizer procurement at national and regional levels especially through the harmonisation of policies and regulations to ensure duty-free and tax-free movement across regions, and the development of capacity for quality control. As an immediate measure, the elimination of taxes and tariffs on fertilizer and fertilizer raw materials is recommended.

By mid-2007, the African Governments must take concrete measures to improve farmers’ access to fertilizers, by developing and scaling up input dealers’ and community-based networks across rural areas. The private sector and development partners are requested to support such actions.

By 2007, the African Union Member States must take concrete measures to specially address the fertilizer needs of farmers, especially women, and to develop and strengthen the capacity of youth, farmers’ associations, civil society organisations, and the private sector.

With immediate effect, the African Union Member States must improve farmers’ access to fertilizer, by granting, with the support of Africa’s development partners, targeted subsidies in favour of the fertilizer sector, with special attention to poor farmers.

The African Union Member States should take immediate steps to accelerate investment in infrastructure, particularly transport, fiscal incentives, strengthening farmers’ organisations, and other measures to improve output market incentives.

The African Union Member States should establish national financing facilities for input suppliers to accelerate access to credit at the local and national level, with specific attention to women.

The African Union Member States request the establishment of regional fertilizer procurement and distribution facilities with the support of the African Development Bank, the Economic Commission for Africa, the Regional Economic Communities and the Regional Development Banks, through strategic public-private partnerships by the end of 2007.

Given the extensive fertilizer raw material resources in Africa and the fact that they are underutilised in many parts of the continent, The African Union Member States undertake to promote national/regional fertilizer production and intra-regional fertilizer trade to capture a bigger market and take advantage of economies of scale through appropriate measures such as tax incentives and infrastructure development. This should be supported by the African Development Bank, the Economic Commission for Africa, the Regional Development Banks, the Regional Economic Communities, other development partners and private sector.

The African Union Member States should take specific action to improve farmers’ access to quality seeds, irrigation facilities, extension services, market information and soil nutrition testing and mapping to facilitate effective and efficient use of inorganic and organic fertilizers, while paying attention to the environment.

The African Development Bank, with the support of the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union Commission, is called upon to establish, by 2007, an Africa fertilizer development financing mechanism that will meet the financing requirements of the various actions agreed upon by the Summit. The African Union Member States undertake to support the establishment of this facility and will pledge resources for its immediate operation.

The African Union Member States request the African Union Commission and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development to set up a mechanism to monitor and evaluate the implementation of this resolution. This should be done in collaboration with the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank. The African Union Commission should give progress reports to the African Heads of State at every six-monthly African Union Summit, starting January 2007.

The African Fertilizer Summit was hosted by the Nigerian Government and implemented by NEPAD and the International Fertilizer Centre.

Source : nepad news - june 23, 2006