Fertiliser usage in Nigeria is already among the lowest in the world, yet, its availability in the country is becoming increasingly difficult, making it less likely to correct the apathy of already disinterested farmers.
“Farmers call me crying because they have invested millions, but don’t have the right fertilizers to apply on their crops,” said Wanger Barnabas Akaazua, operations manager, Afri Agri, while making inputs during a panel on “The Role of Quality Inputs”, at the BusinessDay Agribusiness and Food Security Summit. “They know the right thing to do, but the fertilizers are not available, there are restrictions here and there.”
Akaazua explained he is “not against restrictions if there are laid down plans to help the farmers”. For him, however, there is currently a problem where one of the most important fertilizers for tomato, which is potassium, has become nearly impossible to procure by farmers.
Even though solutions are being explored around NPK, where farmers can expect to get blends with higher quantities of potassium, at present, getting even NPK fertilizers is a problem.
“I can tell you, the losses on vegetables in Nigeria this year will be huge,” he said.
These problems need to be urgently addressed to ensure that the already poor farm outputs do not get even worse. If farmers are left without a choice, they will settle for fertilisers of inferior qualities, just so they can apply something on their farm.
“The restriction (of fertilisers) is a problem and is militating against availability of fertilizers especially the blends needed,” said Donald Madukwe, a senior agronomist at OCP Africa. According to him, restricting the importation of raw materials (for fertiliser blending), particularly the latest release from the federal ministry of finance, prohibiting chemicals with two or more elements, “amounts to placing major restrictions for the production of blends in Nigeria”.
“If you place that (ban), Diammonium phosphate (DAP) is affected because it contains two minerals, and that is the most acceptable raw material for blending because we cannot blend Urea with Triple Super Phosphate (TSP) or Single superphosphate (SSP),” he said. As Madukwe further explained, due to chemical reasons, doing this will result to caking, and the quality of fertilizer will be terrible. At present, DAP is the only raw material that can be blended with Urea to produce good quality fertiliser. If other substitutes are used, there is a chance that the results will not stand the test of time.
Going by the illustrations he provided, these restrictions will cause shortage of quality fertilisers in Nigeria, and this will tell on farmers and in the productivity of farms. “It does not matter the Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) knowledge you have, good seed put in place or crop protection chemicals you have, but if the right fertilizer is not there to provide required nutrients,” he noted outputs will be abysmal.
Following the initial inclusion of NPK 15:15:15 in the banned importation list, Madukwe explained that his company, OCP Africa, made plans for in-country production and with its blending plants coming up, these restrictions will still pose a problem for it to produce fertilisers in Nigeria.
Apart from unavailability of fertiliser, which is currently discouraging usage, a major factor in low fertilizer usage even predating availability is education and awareness. Many farmers, as panellists noted, still do not know what type of fertiliser they should be using, highlighting the need for increase in education and orientation, especially for smallholder farmers.
CALEB OJEWALE
