Abstract

Paper
Fertilizer profitability in East Africa: A Spatially Explicit Policy Analysis
Track: Agriculture
Authors: Zhe Guo, Jawoo Koo, Stanley Wood

High transport costs and less policy support pose a significant barrier to make fertilizer application profitable in Africa. This paper is aimed to identify organizational and institutional changes that could reduce fertilizer transport costs and their impacts on profitability of fertilizer application. A model is constructed to simulated transport costs from ports to farm-gate at pixel level based on the knowledge of road network condition, surface land cover type, slope, imported fertilizer price at the port, storing fee, handling fee and regulation fee. Furthermore, farm-gate fertilizer price, maize price and VCR (value cost ratio) are calculated. Several scenario simulations are developed to visualize them. There are five scenarios considered in the paper including: a) Baseline scenario b) Reduce fertilizer price at port by 20 and 50% c) Transport cost reduce by 20% and 50% d) Reduce country crossing cost by 20% and 50% e) combination of b, c, and d.

Zhe Guo
International Food Policy Research Institute
2033 K ST NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20006
United States
Phone: 2028628181
E-mail: zheguo@gmail.com

Jawoo Koo
IFPRI
2033 K ST NW
WASHINGTON, District of Columbia 20006
United States
Phone: 2028628181
E-mail: J.KOO@CGIAR.ORG

Stanley Wood
IFPRI
2033 K ST NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20006
United States
Phone: 2028628181
E-mail: S.WOOD@CGIAR.ORG