IFPRI Report

Adequate Fertilizer Supplies Crucial for Meeting Future Food Needs

Fertilizer demand is projected to reach 208 million nutrient tons--86 million tons in developed countries and 122 million tons in developing countries--by 2020, but the projected demand in developing countries is expected to fall short of the amount needed to meet goals for food security (estimated at 185 million tons) and sustainable agriculture (251 million tons for resource conservation and nutrient replenishment) in 2020, according to projections made in 2020 Vision Discussion Paper 17, "The Role of Fertilizer in Sustaining Food Security and Protecting the Environment to 2020."

The authors, Balu L. Bumb and Carlos A. Baanante of the International Fertilizer Development Center, review past trends in fertilizer use and present up-to-date estimates of future needs. They also assess technical and policy measures for dealing with environmental and energy concerns related to fertilizer use.

Bumb and Baanante estimate that if the fertilizer production capacity is not increased by the year 2000, fertilizer supplies could fall 51 million nutrient tons short of the projected demand. To produce the fertilizer needed to close the potential gap between supply and demand, countries must adopt policies that encourage macroeconomic stability, efficient organizational arrangements, increased availability of credit to farmers and fertilizer dealers, and investments in research and extension. They will also need to monitor environmental effects to avoid the adverse environmental impacts that come from overuse of fertilizer and careless management.

In recent years, fertilizer use has declined in developed countries and increased in developing countries; by 1995, the developing countries' share was 58 percent of total fertilizer use. Most of this growth was in Asia, which used 61 million tons of fertilizer in 1994/95, compared with less than 4 million tons in Africa. One-half of all of the fertilizer applied by developing countries is used in East Asia.

Fertilizer is essential for meeting future food needs by increasing yields, but the focus of fertilizer policy must shift from an emphasis on increasing the quantities of fertilizer applied to one of promoting efficiently managed and environmentally sound fertilizer use. As the authors of this paper point out, failure to use adequate amounts of fertilizer can also have adverse environmental consequences: it can lead to increased soil degradation, deforestation, and depletion of the natural resource base as poor farmers undertake cultivation of increasingly marginal lands.