14 June 2025, Africa: In the wake of overlapping global crises of the recent years—including the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia–Ukraine war, and escalating climate variability—fertilizer markets have been affected by unprecedented volatility. These shocks have had far-reaching implications for farm-level profitability, national food security strategies, international trade, and environmental sustainability.
The new special issue of the journal Food Policy brings together a collection of research articles examining how these disruptions have affected fertilizer markets, soil health, and agricultural productivity, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
These themes took center stage at an IFPRI policy seminar held on June 11, 2025, to discuss the issue’s findings. Opening the event, Ruth Hill, Director of IFPRI’s Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit, said: “When fertilizer prices skyrocketed in 2022, fertilizer subsidies were the go-to policies, even though many of those supporting their implementation knew them for what they were: a blunt instrument to address a complex challenge.” She emphasized the need for “packages of simple policy solutions that address this complexity more adequately and create the right incentives for fertilizer and soil health investments.” Hill added: “We need to make sure that when the next crisis occurs there is a range of proven policy tools that can be used, and the evidence in this issue puts us on that track.”
In his remarks, Christopher Barrett, Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University and Food Policy Co-Editor-in-Chief emphasized that this special issue is both important and timely because soil health sits at the heart of four major global challenges: sustaining agricultural productivity, ensuring adequate human nutrition, addressing foundational questions in agricultural development economics, and mitigating environmental and health risks. He noted that widespread soil nutrient depletion among smallholders threatens yields, while degraded soils reduce the availability of essential minerals like zinc and iron in diets. Many economic policies rely on accurate assessments of soil conditions, yet these are often poorly understood. Meanwhile, fertilizer mismanagement—overuse in some regions, underuse in others—has serious consequences for the environment, and insufficiently targeted subsidy programs contribute to growing fiscal pressure. View the full recording of the event here.
Special Issue: Main topics
In their synthesis article, four CGIAR guest editors—Kibrom Abay (International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)), Jordan Chamberlin (CIMMYT), Pauline Chivenge (International Rice Research Institute), and David J. Spielman (IFPRI)—provide an overview of the issue, highlighting the complex and uneven impacts of fertilizer price volatility and the range of policy and farm-level responses observed over the 2020–2024 period.
“The 2020–2024 crises revealed vulnerabilities in global fertilizer markets,” says Kibrom Abay. “They also made it clear how urgently we need to integrate soil health and climate resilience into fertilizer policy. What’s also required is a shift from short-term interventions to strategic, evidence-based policies and innovations that support sustainable, shock-resilient agricultural systems.”
Several contributions analyze global market dynamics and price transmission. Rob Vos, Joseph Glauber, Charlotte Hebebrand, and Brendan Rice assess the broader impacts of fertilizer price increases on global demand and farm profitability. Hugo Morão examines the macroeconomic implications of fertilizer supply shocks, and Zhepeng Hu and co-authors investigate structural factors driving price spikes in China’s urea market.
Country-level analyses include new evidence from Rwanda (Spielman et al.) and Kenya (Willwerth et al.), both examining how governments have used subsidy programs and other tools to manage fertilizer affordability and market stability. Meng Xu, Xiaoxi Wang, and Kevin Chen study how agricultural production organizations in China can help reduce fertilizer use and improve efficiency. In Bangladesh, Jaweriah Hazrana and colleagues assess how subsidies and climate change are shaping fertilizer intensity and nutrient balances.
Several studies focus on farm-level decision-making in sub-Saharan Africa. These include new cross-country data on input use trends during recent crises (Amankwah et al.), household-level evidence from Ethiopia (Assefa et al.), and updated estimates of maize yield responsiveness to fertilizer in six countries (Ragasa et al.). Other studies examine how early-season temperature variation (Ahmed), prior weather shocks (Mulungu et al.), and conflict (Takeshima et al.) affect fertilizer access and use.
Several papers also explore innovations in soil health and extension. Nyondo et al. evaluate the impact of site-specific, soil-test-based advice on farmer practices in Malawi. Several articles in the issue reflect growing interest in digital tools and integrated soil fertility management strategies.
This special issue—an important effort by authors from across CGIAR and national partners—offers key insights into the effects of fertilizer market disruptions and the potential for more resilient, sustainable, and context-specific fertilizer and soil health policies.
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