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By Peter S. Goodman
Photos and videos by Finbarr O’Reilly for the New York Times
Information from Yola, Gombe and Abuja, Nigeria
Suleiman Chubado doesn’t know exactly why the value of fertilizer has more than doubled in the past year, but he’s bitterly aware of the consequences. On his farm in northeastern Nigeria, he no longer has enough fertilizer, so his corn is stunted and pale. , the emaciated plants leaning over the dusty earth.
In his dirt home, he has become accustomed to explaining to his two young children and his pregnant wife why they have to settle for two meals a day (and only one), even when hunger eats away at him.
While he and his neighbors are sympathetic to the calamity plaguing much of Africa, they are exchanging theories about one of the issues: Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has disrupted shipments of key ingredients to make fertilizer.
“We are in two other worlds, separated by airplanes and oceans,” Mr. Chubado. “How can we be here?”
This is the case in many low-income countries. Farmers are grappling with crises that have made fertilizers scarce and unaffordable, cutting crops, driving up food prices and spreading hunger.
The war in Ukraine has reduced the region’s grain exports and sent prices of commodities such as heat soaring from Egypt to Indonesia. The world’s food source is also threatened by the ravages of climate change: heat waves, droughts and floods.
Today, fertilizers are scarce and are joining forces with those other forces to threaten livelihoods.
The collapse of fertilizer production endangers the orthodoxy that has governed foreign industry for decades. Eminent economists have presented globalization as an insurance opposite to turmoil. When factories in one position are unable to produce goods, they can be summoned elsewhere. But as farmers in Africa and parts of Asia face fertilizer shortages, their anxiety speaks to a less celebrated facet of the interconnected economy: the shared dependence of important commodities on dominant suppliers creates widespread danger when crises strike.
The crisis began with the Covid-19 pandemic, which increased the cost of transporting fertilizer ingredients. Then came the war. Finally, over the past 18 months, the U. S. Federal Reserve has aggressively raised interest rates to quell domestic inflation. This has raised the price of the U. S. dollar unlike many currencies. Since fertilizer parts are priced in dollars, they are much more expensive. in countries like Nigeria.
Since February 2022, the value of fertilizer has more than doubled in Nigeria and thirteen other countries, according to a survey conducted by ActionAid, a foreign humanitarian organization. Concerns about a lack of confidence in food are “alarming” in much of West and Central Africa, according to a World Bank bulletin.
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, around 90 million people (about two-fifths of the population) suffer from “insufficient food consumption,” according to data from the World Food Programme.
Talking to three dozen other people involved in cultivation, food trading and fertilizer distribution in northeastern Nigeria, there is a sense of bewilderment along with despair.
Farmers are shifting from developing commodities such as rice and maize in favor of lower-value crops such as soybeans and peanuts, which require less fertilizer. Thieves borrow crops. Wives leave their husbands and return to their families with more food. Parents pull their children out of school due to lack of cash to pay school fees. Upward mobility has given way to the imperative to endure.
Mr. Chubado, 27, is thinking about sending his children to college. He uses part of his harvest to feed his family while selling the rest to raise money. However, since he has no more crops to sell this year, he recently transferred his 10-year-old son, Abubakar, from a private school with no more than 20 students to a public school with 70 young people crammed into classrooms.
He can’t wear the same three school uniforms as always, so Abubakar has to settle for just one. Some days, your child complains that his uniform is too dirty and refuses to go to school.
Faced with the ordinary costs of inbiological or advertising fertilizers, some farmers are turning to organic varieties, adding animal manure. In the long term, it’s greater for soils, food quality and public health, experts say.
But it can take years for crops grown with biological fertilizers to reach the yields achieved through the use of advertising varieties. In Nigeria, home to more than 220 million people, the most sensible priority is the immediate search for additional food. Now, biological fertilizers are still a way to incorporate important nutrients like nitrogen and potassium into soils.
Inorganic fertilizers are a global business governed by manufacturers in the United States, China, India, Russia, Canada, and Morocco. Nigeria has several fertilizer factories that produce nitrogen fertilizers, but they export almost all of it to South America. As a result, the country is vulnerable to any disruption in the global supply chain.
The pandemic has dealt a colossal blow.
When producing and blending fertilizers, Nigeria imports phosphates mined from Morocco and sends them to the port of Lagos. In the first two months of the pandemic, when trade activity froze, shipping lines reduced their ports of call in sub-Saharan Africa by about a fifth, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Then, when normal shipping schedules resumed, Lagos overcame a transportation delay. Seeking a less difficult passage, fertilizer brands diverted their shipments to Port Harcourt, about 370 miles offshore. But widespread piracy in the region has led to increased insurance and transportation. costs.
In March 2021, a large container shipment ran aground in the Suez Canal, shutting down this industrial artery and driving up shipping prices globally. The price of Moroccan phosphates delivered to Nigeria has risen from $300 to $400 per tonne to over $1,000.
“There have been all those who have made supply worse,” said Gideon Negedu, executive secretary of the Nigerian Fertilizer Producers and Suppliers Association.
Then, as it reset, Russia invaded Ukraine.
For fertilizer producers, the biggest immediate effect of the war was its impact on energy prices.
Nitrogen fertilizers are made using a chemical process that consumes energy, natural fuel. When the U. S. , Europe and other governments imposed sanctions on Russia, a major fuel manufacturer, the value increased.
The war was also limited to potash, a vital source of potassium. Potash mining is a primary industry in Belarus, one of Russia’s best friends. Even before the war in Ukraine, Belarus faced foreign restrictions on its sales. Russia is another primary supplier.
The U. S. and EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus come with waivers to allow the agricultural produce industry. But much of the potash from landlocked Belarus is historically shipped from Lithuania, which has banned the rail since last year.
Fertilizer brands couldn’t simply do without phosphates and make products that contained the other nutrients, nitrogen and potassium. Many crops require all three.
Mr. Negedu’s industrial agreement represents 80 fertilizer blending plants and 500 primary suppliers across Nigeria. In search of potash, the deal turned to the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, which was facing a tough party from much larger fertilizer consumers from the United States and India, as well as higher shipping rates.
For much of last year, a ton of potash transported from Canada to Nigeria cost $1,350, about times more than before 2020.
In the dusty town of Gombe, Kasim Abubakar, a 28-year-old fertilizer trader, watched his actions wane with a deepening sense of dread.
It was July 2022, five months after Russia invaded Ukraine and the peak season began for farmers to apply fertilizer. He placed an order for 700 bags of urea (a form of nitrogen) from a Nigerian manufacturer.
It wasn’t until October, four months into the peak season, that he finally got his delivery.
This year, Abubakar ordered 2,100 bags of NPK, a blend of the three main nutrients, from an agribusiness in Lagos. He paid the full balance in advance, amounting to 48 million naira, or about $61,000.
A few weeks later, he was informed by a sales manager that production had stopped at the factory. Abubakar never won his shipment, despite having been waiting 4 months to receive a refund.
With stocks, its sales fell by half. In the Gombe region, fertilizer shortages have worsened.
For farmers with enough cash or credit to buy fertilizer, like 77-year-old Mohammed Sambo, it’s an opportunity. His 370-acre farm beyond Gombe is home to his four wives, seven children and 40 grandchildren. They live in dusty houses with no power or plumbing.
Last year, with fertilizer prices rising, Sambo and his circle of relatives farmed only 74 acres. This year, fertilizers are even more expensive. Still, they nearly doubled their plantings and increased fertilizer use, believing that – with the withdrawal of other farmers – the white beans, maize and millet they grew would generate a premium.
They borrowed money from a local seed company that provides technical advice and fertilizer as part of a program set up by Mercy Corps, the foreign humanitarian organization. The seed company waits for the harvest until it receives its refund.
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Sambo’s circle of relatives proudly displayed their towering corn plants. One of his sons disposed of the silk of a promising ear to reveal plump white grains.
The family plans to invest their profits in expanding their acreage next year and eventually installing solar cells to generate electricity.
But those who can’t fertilize are triple-cursed. They don’t have enough crops to feed their families. They don’t have anything to sell to raise money. However, they have to buy food at incredibly inflated prices.
Adamu Ibrahim, a 28-year-old father of four, had hoped to sell some of his corn to generate budget to move forward with a very important project: replacing the crumbling dust walls of his home. Venomous snakes crawl through the holes, threatening your family. He added sections of cinder blocks to block his path.
But this year, maybe I’ll just apply some of the same old fertilizer. On a recent afternoon, his corn collapsed under the tropical sun.
“At first sight,” he said, “my harvest will be for consumption. “
When the growing season began in May, the ingredients to produce fertilizer became available around the world again.
“The fertilizer market has stabilized,” Maximo Torero Cullen, lead economist at the U. N. ‘s Food and Agriculture Organization, said by phone from his workplace in Rome. “I don’t see any challenges right now. “
But farmers in much of Africa were struggling.
The value of everything was going up. Fertilizers were available, but many farmers may simply not have them. The price of staple foods such as maize, rice and beans was rising. The same was true for the price of meat, as farm animals are regularly fed cereal husks.
In Ashington, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. Investors were promoting currencies in riskier countries like Nigeria and suddenly buying higher-yielding assets bought and sold in dollars.
Over the past year, the Nigerian naira has lost almost part of its price against the dollar. The fall of local currencies increases the cost of all imports, adding the ingredients needed to make fertilizers.
Fertilizer costs were far from the only source of misery for farmers. Last year’s catastrophic floods destroyed crops in northeastern Nigeria. In the capital, Abuja, the government scrapped fuel subsidies this year, driving up shipping costs.
And the inability to buy fertilizer makes it harder for rural families to overcome those challenges.
Last year, Aisha Hassan Jauro, a 40-year-old mother of five from the town of Yola, borrowed 100,000 naira (about $126) from a local bank at an interest rate of 20 percent. He used the cash to buy fertilizer, seeds and insecticides while planting corn on his five acres.
The floods have destroyed her crop, leaving her without food or money, but she still has to pay a monthly loan of 17,500 naira (about $22).
She and her husband buy spices and cereals at a downtown market and sell them at higher prices in their village, earning enough for just one meal a day. They reserve their most nutritious food for the younger ones (fried dough made with cassava flour) while the adults subsist. about boiled weeds plucked from their gardens.
Her daughter was pulled out of college, where she studied crisis management. Another woman can’t start seventh grade because she doesn’t have to pay 2,500 naira (about $3) for a mandatory exam.
Land is emerging as a potential source of recovery. But this year, with even more expensive fertilizers, they didn’t plant anything.
For farmers accustomed to feeding their families, a stall at the market is an indignity.
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Chubado arrived at Yola’s Central Market to supplement his meager harvest. He entered a labyrinth of muddy alleys filled with merchants. Children rolled wooden carts with eggs in front of women carrying baskets of bananas on their heads. in front of wooden tables, wielding knives to cut goats into pieces of new meat. The air was heavy with a stinky smell of smoked fish, animal entrails, and diesel fuel, which powered damn machines that ground corn into flour.
Mr. Chubado bought spinach, a red onion, and a bottle of peanut oil for cooking. The value of the oil is double that of the previous year, so he bought part of the usual amount.
He walked into a booth where a guy had a steel container to move urea from one giant bag to two plastic bags.
“I was there to buy a whole bag,” M says shyly. Chubado.
At the age of 70, Juliana Bala experienced a sensation that was previously unknown in her 70s: the fear of hunger. She raised six children in a space provided by her husband’s employer, a local railroad company. Historically, neighbors shared food with each other.
But recently, Mrs. Bala endured an hour-long hike to her farm on a muddy, bumpy path and was horrified to find that her crop had been stained. The thieves had stolen some of his corn.
“I broke down and cried,” she said. How can you apply his harsh paint and power and then reap your harvest?
Almost part of her annual source of income disappeared, threatening not only her ability to feed herself, her husband, and the six grandchildren they are raising, but also depriving them of the savings they needed to buy seeds and fertilizer the following year. They no longer eat meat or fish, opting for porridge made of yams and beans.
Crop theft is a new scourge. Bala took this as a sign: that there were enough hungry people to engage in crime; that the warnings he had absorbed from his Lutheran preacher were being fulfilled.
The last days were approaching, which the preacher had been preaching for years. The pandemic is the first sign of this. Fertilizer and food shortages, brought on by the war, seemed to be next. And now, with part of his crop lost, he may no longer feed his children.
“Life has changed,” said Mrs. Bala. Me I’m afraid it’s the end of the world.
An earlier edition of this article incorrectly referenced a fertilizer that had been moved from Canada to Nigeria for much of last year and charged $1,350. It’s potash, phosphate.
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Peter S. Goodman is a journalist who covers the global economy. He writes about the intersection of economics and geopolitics, with a particular focus on the consequences for people, their lives and their livelihoods. Learn more about Peter S. Goodman
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