The sky-high cost of fertilizer is pushing farmers to the brink and further straining African food security: Fertilizer prices have increased by at least 30% since the start of 2022, besides another 80% surge registered last year, according to World Bank figures. These rising prices pose significant challenges for food producers and consumers across the continent already faced with a shortage of at least 30 mn tons of food, including staples such as wheat, corn, and soybeans.

Producers of nitrogen-based fertilizers took a big hit because of the Russia-Ukraine war: Nitrogen-based fertilizers, which account for some two thirds of the nutrients used to grow crops and rely heavily on gas for their production, have seen prices surge since the onset of the war in Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions placed on Russia in response, the Financial Times reports. This has been especially troubling for European fertilizer manufacturers, who have struggled to secure alternative sources of natural gas and have typically relied on Russian gas to produce 15% of global crop nutrient supplies.

Further down the supply chain, farmers are slashing their use of fertilizers as a result: Globally, fertilizer usage among farmers has been significantly scaled down in response to the skyrocketing costs. Even though fertilizer use in Africa is relatively low compared to the rest of the world, the impact has been even more pronounced — countries like the Ivory Coast and Cameroon have seen fertilizer costs surge more than 50% since February — and it is precisely because growing agents are less widely used in food production in Africa than in other parts of the world that even a modest reduction in fertilizer use would pose significant problems for many of these farms.

Food staples are at increasing risk: The high cost of fertilizer alone is expected to be responsible for a 1.8% reduction in the global production of corn, wheat, rice, and soybean in the 2022-2023 crop year, according to commodities research firm Gro. In Kenya, coffee, tea and flower production is projected to fall by some 6% and could trigger a loss of some 0.8% of GDP this year, according to a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute.

This could spell even more trouble for food security and potentially trigger unrest, some analysts suggest. The combination of reduced agricultural productivity caused by the scaling back of fertilizers and the wider climatic pressures already threatening crop yields suggest that we may be in store for greater levels of food insecurity and even social unrest. “The consequences of a looming food crisis may be more pronounced than during the 2007-08 global food crisis and the 2010-11 food price hikes that contributed to the Arab spring,” the FT cites McKinsey consultants as saying.

And it looks like we’ll be stuck with high fertilizer costs for the foreseeable future: As long as energy prices remain high, fertilizer prices are expected to remain prohibitively expensive for many farmers on the continent. For now, it looks like we’re in high-cost fertilizer territory for the next five-12 months, the World Bank’s senior agricultural economist and head of the commodities unit tells the FT.

This is especially consequential for Egypt where food security remains a challenge: Egypt faces a moderate level of hunger, ranking 61 of 117 countries, according to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP). “Food affordability, quality and safety remain challenges as Egypt continues to rely on global markets for more than half of its staples,” the WFP says. The problem is that food prices — which were up 22.3% on an annual basis in July — are likely to continue facing pressure as fertilizer costs remain high.

But we’re also seeing IFIs pledging support to African food producers: The World Bank has earlier this year said that it would deploy USD 30 bn over the course of 15 months starting in May to combat the “devastating effects” of rising food insecurity around the world. This comes in addition to the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) USD 1.5 bn facility announced earlier this year to help African countries avert a “looming food crisis” — part of which would includes providing 20 mn African smallholder farmers with seeds and fertilizers to help them produce around 38 mn tons of food. Egypt is expected to be getting USD 174 mn of that pie in addition to a separate USD 97 mn from AfDB that will in part be responsible for offering 30-50% tax breaks for green hydrogen and ammonia producers to increase fertilizer production.

So have fertilizer producers and rich countries: Norway’s Yara and Morocco’s OCP have said that they would be offering discounts and donations of their fertilizers to African farmers this year. The US has also pledged some USD 1 bn to help improve the region’s food security–USD 50 mn of which is coming to Egypt.