Of Uganda's bizarre "deliberate fertilizers weak policies"

At a mere 1kg of nutrient per hectare per year, Uganda has the lowest fertilizer use in the world. As if that was not bad enough for an agricultural country, prices of fertilizers here cost ten times more than on international markets. For East African comparison purposes, Kenya’s fertilizer use stands at 32kg/ha, Rwanda – 29kg/ha and Tanzania – 6kg/ha.

The ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries now says; fertilizer use should in fact be as high as 200kg/ha per year - way above the 2006 Abuja declaration recommendation of 9kg/ha per year.

Komayombi Bulegeya, Commissioner Crop Protection Ministry of Agriculture says that figure was reached at after a feasibility study across the country and that the old recommendations are now “outdated”.

Besides, the country’s soils are not getting any more fertile. Agricultural growth is stuck at two per cent while the population is rapidly growing at 3.2 per cent. Soon Uganda will not be able to meet the food demands of her citizens. 

But more worrying, a research conducted by Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) reveals that fertilizers that are low on quality and are inconsistent in nutrients and weight in comparison to the labeling are widely on sale in the country.

Laboratory analysis of 170 fertilizer samples bought randomly from the market i.e. Urea, NPK, DAP and CAN show that their moisture content was above the acceptable limits of 0.5-1.5%. The average fertilizers sampled from importers was 1.85%, at the retailers (stockists) – 1.92% and re-packed bags at 2.18%.

The moisture variations could partly be explained by the repackaging notes Dr Swaibu Mbowa a Senior Research Fellow at EPRC. Also, 65% of samples from importers were non-compliant in terms of moisture content and weight. 80% of those registered by Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries were non-compliant.

Because fertilizers are based on nutrient content, if the quality is not right, the farmer will not attain the intended crop production response after fertilizer application, experts say.

‘Deliberate weak policies’

Experts at the validation workshop pointed to weak policies and lack of structural policies that has led to flooding of counterfeit fertilizers into the market. Any fertilizer dealer is required to have trained in use of agricultural chemical, have an O-level certificate and a good storehouse. 

Obviously, many dealers don’t meet these requirements. Komayombi says the weak policies are “deliberate” because most farmers are yet to appreciate the importance of fertilizers as they wrongly still perceive the soils to be naturally fertile.

“We are stricter on importers of herbicides and insecticides than fertilizers”, he says. For the commissioner, the weak policies are meant to encourage more importation of fertilizers "since it will lead to bulk purchases". Fair enough, only that it is poor quality fertilizers being imported and distributed to the farmers. Some dealers are even mixing posho and sorghum flour with genuine fertilizers so as to get more quantities. Rwanda - which even government officials concede has better policies on fertilizer use, is now the most preferred importing (albeit secondary) country for farmers in Kisoro. 

Komayombi says government has already trained 170 district agricultural officers in fertilizer use and provided each district with two soil testing kits. Considering that there are 112 districts that intervention seems like just a drop on the ocean.

Rosette from Ministry of Finance says some of those trained officers have since retired, transferred, retrenched or even died. And that the testing kits are not supplied with training manuals – which would be handful to farmers when making fertilizer purchase and use decisions.

Organic fertilizers

An participant wondered “why with all the glaring challenges of inorganic fertilizers there was little push for use of organic fertilizers instead?”

Charles Luswata, a lecturer in s oil science at Makerere University said in response that the problem with organic fertilizers is you can’t determine the nutrients composition and quantities. So the farmer may not get the desired fertilizer needs and yet the whole essence of applying fertilizers is to give the soils the fertilizers that they are lacking.

- Frank Kisakye

fkisakye@gmail.com