Sustain Africa provides rebated fertilizer and resilience program...

Sustain Africa’s country programmes in Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia have completed, with programmes in Burkina Faso and Ghana completing at the end of August 2024. In total s...

Recommendations for strengthening multistakeholder crisis respons...

A study by Dalberg evaluated Sustain Africa’s relevance, impact logic, partnerships and governance, and efficiency and also made recommendations on how to achieve even greater impact if a price s...

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New research shows fertilizer use and subsidies must deliver bett...

Research by a consortium headed by Purdue University shows that fertilizer use is not consistently profitable for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The research was commissioned by Sus...

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Sustain Africa programme launches in Burkina Faso

Sustain Africa’s country programme in Burkina Faso launched on the 7th of February 2024 with kick-off meetings in the capital Ouagadougou. The project will provide 20,000 tonnes of discounted fer...

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Sustain Africa starts advisory to Nigerian government

Sustain Africa’s advisory programme in Nigeria was launched on December 1 2023 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Federal Government of Nigeria and Sustain Africa. Sust...

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The fertilizer crisis response and resilience initiative for Sub-Saharan Africa

Sustain Africa works as a coordination mechanism among public and private sector partners to help smallholder farmers access affordable fertilizer

Our targets for 2022/2024

2.1

million farmers

million people

countries

Sustain Africa aims to support just over 2 million farmers in 7 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2023. Sustain Africa is operational in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique, Malawi, Madagascar, Uganda and Zambia. Government advisory and project support is also provided in Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania.

About us

Sustain Africa is a crisis response and resilience initiative to improve availability, affordability and effective and sustainable use of fertilizers while avoiding unintended market distortions. Fertilizer supply and demand have been severely disrupted by COVID 19 and the Russia / Ukraine war, contributing to an acceleration of food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sustain Africa was founded by Rabobank, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), International Fertilizer Association (IFA), and the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), and with the support of AGRA.

Sustain Africa works as a coordination mechanism among public and private sector partners to help smallholder farmers access affordable fertilizer. Donated or discounted fertilizer is blended and distributed by Sustain Africa partners and made available to farmers with relevant extension services, focused on sustainable farming practices. Additional services include, in some cases, market linkages for farmers and credit guarantees for working capital to agrodealers and suppliers. Fertilizer, seeds and services are provided through appropriate government or private-sector distribution channels and are monitored and evaluated as part of the programme. A key focus of Sustain Africa’s country selection and models of working with private-sector input suppliers is to complement the existing marketplace, and to avoid unintended market distortions.

Sustain Africa focuses on sustaining and improving the productivity of food crops needed to ensure food security for smallholder farmers.

Goal 1

Reduce rising hunger

Reduce rapidly rising hunger by addressing current fertilizer shortages and affordability in Africa

Goal 2

Improve farmers’ soil health

Support farmers in applying sustainable agricultural practices that improve soil health and nutritional outcomes while reducing carbon impact

Goal 3

Support a knowledge agenda

Contribute to a broader knowledge agenda to support governments with learnings on how to deal effectively with price spikes that pose serious risk to food security

Sustain Africa's unique levers for change

Why is
Sustain Africa Needed

The current fertilizer crisis, caused by high energy prices driven in turn by the Russia-Ukraine war, is a contributing factor in an escalating food security crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa. Though wholesale and retail fertilizer prices are coming down from their 2022 peak, they are not at 2021 levels. Meanwhile, farmgate and commodity prices have not risen at the same level, causing severe stress to smallholder farmer profitability.

Compounding this is a rise in the number of countries on the continent at risk of, or in, severe debt distress, and the fact that rising interest rates mean debt payments account for an increasing percentage of GDP. As a result, a number of governments on the continent that have subsidized fertilizer in the past, are considering withdrawing this funding.

Fertilizer use on the continent is already extremely low – farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa use 7 times less fertilizer than the world average. Furthermore, many farmers are not trained in how to apply fertilizer efficiently - and together with appropriate biological and organic products – to increase crop yields in a way that is economically and environmentally sustainable. Up to 40% of yield is lost to pest and lack of appropriate storage, among other factors. Yields for almost all crops are more than 3 times lower than their potential which impacts both farmer profitability and food security. We can feed 8.4 million more people per acre through the correct use of fertilizer and measures to reduce post-harvest food loss than without.