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  • Publication | 2026
Hidden costs of fertilizerinduced acidification in sub-Saharan Africa
Global Food and Nutrition Security

Nitrogen (N) fertilizers are critical to ensure an adequate and stable food supply in subSaharan Africa (Falconnier et al., 2023). Despite the food security merits of N fertilizers, their use in the region remains below recommended application rates for most crops. Low use of N fertilizers by smallholder farmers has been attributed to economic concerns regarding their profitability under prevailing market conditions (BonillaCedrez et al., 2021), by uncertain returns-on-investment due to rainfall variability and input:output price volatility (Gebrekidan et al., 2026), and by land and capital constraints on smallholder farms (Giller et al., 2021). Poor soil fertility, including inherent soil acidity, and suboptimal agronomic management also reduce fertilizer use efficiency in some contexts (Silva et al., 2025; Vanlauwe et al., 2011) further discouraging farmers to use fertilizers efficiently. Looking ahead, recent estimates indicate that N fertilizer inputs will need to at least triple to ensure cereal self-sufficiency in the region by 2050 (van Ittersum et al., 2025).