In Wolof, it's called "dior." The term refers to the very sandy, dry soil found in the Niayes region, one of Senegal's agricultural hubs. In this coastal area stretching from Dakar to Saint-Louis, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by a dune belt, the climate is suitable for agriculture and water is readily available, but the soil is not very fertile.
"Without fertilizer, you can't grow anything here," said 66-year-old Amar Sall, shielded from the sun by a large traditional pointed hat woven from straw and leather: "Given the very poor nature of this soil, the plant doesn't meet its needs, so fertilizer input is crucial." He spreads around 450 kilos of these nutrient-containing pellets in each cycle – two or three cycles a year – to grow onions, potatoes, carrots and cabbages on a plot of around five hectares, located on the outskirts of the village of Diogo.
Daily, this hamlet in the Niayes region lives to the rhythm of market gardening and fishing. However, it's also marked by the often tragic journeys of young locals who set out in pirogues, hoping to make it to Europe. This Friday around noon, Diogo was preparing for the market post-weekly prayer. The main street was bustling with trucks laden with diakhatou (also known as "African eggplant") and watermelons. Women began setting up their stalls, and stores selling fertilizer, adorned with vibrant paintings of vegetables, opened their doors.
In Adama Beye's shop, large 50-kilo bags are piled up, prices for which have soared in recent years. "It's gone up to 40,000, 45,000 CFA francs [around €60 to €70] a bag, it was very difficult to get supplies," said the 37-year-old manager in Wolof, over the din of television noise that disrupted the quiet atmosphere. "This year it's gone down a lot, but it's still too, too expensive. It's still 20,000 CFA francs." Before 2020, the price was around 12,000 CFA francs for the two products most commonly consumed here: urea, a classic nitrogen fertilizer, and NPK, a mixture of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
Faced with this inflation, explained Sall, farmers are buying fewer bags, thereby limiting their use of these inputs, which are already very low in Senegal – an average of nine kilos per hectare of arable land, compared with 153 in France and 375 in China, according to the World Bank. "When we reduce inputs, we immediately see an impact on yields," added the market gardener. The consequence for farmers is twofold: a harvest that does not meet the family's needs and no extra income to buy other food.
Why are fertilizers so scarce and expensive? Senegal, like its African neighbors who import fertilizers on a massive scale, has been affected by a global situation. The surge in prices began with the Covid-19 crisis, which disrupted supply chains and then intensified with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In addition to the rise in energy costs (on which fertilizers are heavily dependent) caused by the war, Russia is one of the world's leading fertilizer producers. In addition, the strengthening of the dollar against local currencies has further increased the cost of imports for Africans.
Fertilizer prices doubled in Nigeria, tripled in Ethiopia and almost quadrupled in Zimbabwe between early 2022 and early 2023, according to a study by the NGO ActionAid. When asked about recent global trends, John Baffes, senior economist specializing in agricultural issues at the World Bank, noted that prices have now returned to pre-Covid-19 levels. "But prices in some markets remain high. Explanations include the fact that fertilizers available [locally] have been purchased at high prices or due to the depreciation of local currencies," he wrote by e-mail.
In Senegal, the government has long tried to regulate fluctuations through massive subsidies. This year, 40 billion CFA francs, or 40% of the public agricultural support budget, was allocated to fertilizer subsidies. In theory, farmers only pay around 50% of the cost of a bag of urea or NPK. However, this system is undermined by mismanagement and bad practice, which reduces its impact, as many industry players acknowledge.
To protect itself against shocks, the industry is particularly keen to see the development of local production. "When we say NPK in Senegal, N, the nitrogen, is imported, and K, the potassium, is imported. Everything is imported except phosphate," said Moulaye Kandé, president of the Senegalese Association of Fertilizer Professionals. Senegal is a phosphate producer. The Industries Chimiques du Sénégal ("Chemical Industries of Senegal," ICS) group, owned by the Asian giant Indorama, operates a large mine in the Niayes region. Part of its production, phosphorus, is used locally to manufacture NPK for the domestic market, while the rest is exported.
Kandé himself owns a small NPK fertilizer production unit, which sources some of its phosphate from ICS, "but at international market prices. Even though the phosphate is Senegalese, its price is set daily," he deplored, noting that there are no subsidies for fertilizer producers and that his unit does not operate continuously due to a lack of profitability.
Faced with the challenges of a highly globalized market, the Senegalese government is finally developing another strategy: improving access to organic fertilizers, which it has begun to subsidize up to 50%. In Diogo, Ngagne Diop, president of the Coopadin agricultural cooperative, is enthusiastic – he has even benefited from a conversion project in his own field. "The soil is degrading with the effect of fertilizers, so we're guiding farmers towards organics," he boasted, sitting in his tiny office, where bags of supplies take up half the space. Organic farming however faces similar challenges: costs (only a few thousand metric tons are subsidized, compared with 180,000 metric tons for chemical fertilizers), limited local production, training for farmers, etc.
Before leaving for Friday prayers, Diop raised another problem that is often overlooked in the quest for higher yields: "Post-harvest losses are also money!" These are the tomatoes, onions and potatoes that rot in the fields or on the markets due to a lack of storage. Across all sectors, these losses represent between 13% and 70% of production in Senegal, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.