Fertilizer Subsidy Research Articles

Pelatihan Pembuatan Pupuk Organik Cair dari Urine Sapi untuk Mengurangi Ketergantungan Pemakaian Pupuk Subsidi

Today the agricultural system that is widely used by farmers today is agriculture that still uses chemicals for both fertilizer and for pesticides. While now many fertilizers and pesticides are already using organic materials as raw materials .The purpose of this dedication is to provide knowledge to partners that the livestock wastes they produce can be used as raw material for the production of livestock waste fertilizer in the form of cow urine can be overcome and also can help the farmers in reducing the expenses incurred for farming that they also do.Evaluation based on participant's answer in the form of Pre Test and Post Test results with yes and no answer that participant's knowledge about making organic liquid fertilizer from cow urine increased significantly from only 11% when Pre Test increased to 100%, from Pre Test 0% to 100% at the Post Test. For the question of whether the participants know the required materials answer yes only 10% while the answer is not as much as 90%. But at the time of Post Test it has increased 100%, about the benefits gained from the use of liquid fertilizer that is, who answered yes as much as 8% while 92% others do not know. of cow urine can reduce the dependence of fertilizer subsidies.

Revising Fertilizer Subsidy and Taxes Policy for Reducing Cost of Production of Major Crops in Pakistan

Revising Fertilizer Subsidy and Taxes Policy for Reducing Cost of Production of Major Crops in Pakistan

Impact of Fertilizer Subsidy Program on Agricultural Productivity in Ghana

Impact of Fertilizer Subsidy Program on Agricultural Productivity in Ghana

Indian Food and Welfare Schemes: Scope for Digitization towards Cash Transfers

Indian Food and Welfare Schemes: Scope for Digitization towards Cash Transfers

Can smallholder farmers adapt to climate variability, and how effective are policy interventions? Agent‐based simulation results for Ethiopia

AbstractClimate variability with unexpected droughts and floods causes serious production losses and worsens food security, especially in Sub‐Saharan Africa. This study applies stochastic bioeconomic modeling to analyze smallholder adaptation to climate and price variability in Ethiopia. It uses the agent‐based simulation package Mathematical Programming‐based Multi‐Agent Systems (MPMAS) to capture nonseparable production and consumption decisions at household level, considering livestock and eucalyptus sales for consumption smoothing, as well as farmer responses to policy interventions. We find the promotion of new maize and wheat varieties to be an effective adaptation option, on average, especially when accompanied by policy interventions such as credit and fertilizer subsidy. We also find that the effectiveness of available adaptation options is quite different across the heterogeneous smallholder population in Ethiopia. This implies that policy assessments based on average farm households may mislead policy makers to adhere to interventions that are beneficial on average albeit ineffective in addressing the particular needs of poor and food insecure farmers.

Determinants of participation in fertilizer subsidy programme among rice farmers in Ogun State, Nigeria

Nigerian farmers, including rice farmers, still record very low levels of fertilizer use thereby limiting productivity. Subsidies have been known to encourage fertilizer use among farmers. This paper examined the factors influencing rice farmer participation in the government’s fertilizer subsidy programme. Data was collected through the aid of a well-structured questionnaire from 263 rice farmers. Descriptive and Logistic regression analyses were used to analyze the data. Statistical mean differences were found in age, household size, years of farming experience, farm size, output and total annual income between participants and non-participants. Also, participation was significantly and positively influenced by marital status, household headship, membership of farmer association/groups, motorcycle ownership, mobile phone ownership, access to credit and total farm size. The paper concludes that efforts should be geared towards encouraging membership of farmer groups, availability and timely distribution of subsidized fertilizer and the establishment of more redemption centres. Key words: Fertilizer, growth enhancement scheme (GES), participation, rice, subsidy.

Predicting minimum tillage adoption among smallholder farmers using micro-level and policy variables

Minimum tillage combined with mulching (MTM) is critical to conservation agriculture, yet its use by smallholder farmers raises challenging questions regarding adoption, diffusion and scaling at farm level. In this paper, we used probit regression and post-estimation simulations to identify the key micro (farm specific) and macro (country specific) factors as predictors of MTM adoption in four countries spanning a north-south gradient in eastern and southern Africa (ESA): Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi. We found that farmers’ access to markets and social capital empirically predicted MTM adoption. Policies that increased fertilizer subsidies and extension-staff-to-farmer ratios had similar effects, even if only modestly. Conceivably, subsidies specifically targeted at MTM could also be considered based on their potential environmental and social benefits. We conclude that adoption of MTM still faces the same micro- and macro-level hurdles common to all agricultural technologies. Long-term investments in agricultural extension and reductions in the costs of complementary inputs are critical for the diffusion of MTM.

Global Phosphorus Fertilizer Market and National Policies: A Case Study Revisiting the 2008 Price Peak.

The commodity market super-cycle and food price crisis have been associated with rampant food insecurity and the Arab spring. A multitude of factors were identified as culprits for excessive volatility on the commodity markets. However, as it regards fertilizers, a clear attribution of market drivers explaining the emergence of extreme price events is still missing. In this paper, we provide a quantitative assessment of the price spike of the global phosphorus fertilizer market in 2008 focusing on diammonium phosphate (DAP). We find that fertilizer market policies in India, the largest global importer of phosphorus fertilizers and phosphate rock, turned out to be a major contributor to the global price spike. India doubled its import of P-fertilizer in 2008 at a time when prices doubled. The analysis of a wide set of factors pertinent to the 2008 price spike in phosphorus fertilizer market leads us to the discovery of a price spike magnification and triggering mechanisms. We find that the price spike was magnified on the one hand by protective trade measures of fertilizer suppliers leading to a 19% drop in global phosphate fertilizer export. On the other hand, the Indian fertilizer subsidy scheme led to farmers not adjusting their demand for fertilizer. The triggering mechanism appeared to be the Indian production outage of P-fertilizer resulting in the additional import demand for DAP in size of about 20% of annual global supply. The main conclusion is that these three factors have jointly caused the spike, underscoring the need for ex ante improvements in fertilizer market regulation on both national and international levels.

A Basic Income for Indians: Desirability and Feasibility

While India spends about 5% of its GDP on social welfare, the bulk of this spending does not reach the poorest. Even absent corruption, which creates important leakages in the distribution system, the schemes poorly reach their targets. With the help of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and its biometric system Aadhaar, the central government is improving the efficiency of current schemes. However, the welfare system remains very costly and inefficient. To overcome these problems as well as for conceptual reasons, the development of nconditional cash transfers (UCT) have been proposed. Contrarily to job guarantee program (MGNREGS) or to food, fuel or fertilizer subsidies, UCT provide cash to their beneficiaries. In contrast with conditional cash transfers (CCT), such as free mid-day meals or the maternity benefit program, basic income —a type of UCT— does not target a specific population. What would be the advantages and drawbacks of a basic income as compared to existing schemes? How does empirical evidence support arguments in favor or against a basic income? What is the scope for a basic income, given the financial capacity of the State and the available technology? These questions will be addressed in turn, in order to assess the potential for this ambitious policy.

Understanding Conflicting Interests of a Government and a Tobacco Manufacturer: A Game-Theoretic Approach

Rice is the staple food of nearly half of the population of the world, most of whom live in developing countries. Ensuring a domestic supply of rice from outside sources is difficult for developing countries as less than 5% of the total world’s production is available for international trade. Hence, in order to ensure domestic food security, e.g., food availability and access, governments provide subsidies in agriculture. In many occasions, public money used for the subsidy goes toward promoting undesirable crops like tobacco. Although the strategic interaction between governments and manufacturers is critical, it has not been studied in the literature. This study fills this gap by considering a game between a government (of a developing country) and a tobacco manufacturer in which the government decides on a mix of subsidies and the tobacco manufacturer decides on declaring a purchasing price of tobacco. We provide a numerical study to show that controlling the output harvest price is more effective in reaching the desired end result for both the government and the tobacco manufacturer. A subsidy in fertilizer results in the measurable increase in the government spending but does not have significant effect in reaching the production target. The fertilizer subsidy should be provided only when the output price is too high to be affordable for the population.

Moving in the right direction? The role of price subsidies in fertilizer use and maize productivity in Ghana

Despite major maize programs in the last two decades and costly investments in a price subsidy program in Ghana, maize productivity remains very low. Utilizing cross-sectional data on 645 maize plots in Ghana, this paper provides empirical evidence on the responsiveness of maize yield to fertilizer application, profitability of fertilizer use, and how the economics of fertilizer use have changed with the subsidy program. There was a statistically significant maize yield response to increased fertilizer application (i.e. 1-kg of nitrogen leads to a yield increase of 22–26 kg per hectare), higher than those estimated in other countries in Africa. Value-cost ratio shows that maize production with fertilizer is profitable both at market and subsidized prices in different locations and with different farming practices, even after incorporating risk into the estimation and analysis. However, despite subsidized prices and profitable fertilizer use, the actual application rate (at 44 kg/ha of nitrogen on average) is much lower than research institute’s and government recommendation and far off the computed economically “optimal” levels (at 225 kg/ha of nitrogen; where the fertilizer price intersects the value of marginal physical product derived from the yield response model). Results suggest that fertilizer prices do not seem to be the binding constraint in greater fertilizer application and productivity increases in maize; other factors appear to be major bottlenecks to greater fertilizer application and productivity increases including accessibility to modern varieties, mechanization, and hired labor. This result shows the limits to fertilizer subsidy as the focus strategy and suggests a more integrated and holistic approach to encourage greater fertilizer application, productivity and income among maize farmers in Ghana.

Re-evaluating the Malawian Farm Input Subsidy Programme.

The Malawian Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) has received praise as a proactive policy that has transformed the nation's food security, yet irreconcilable differences exist between maize production estimates distributed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Malawi Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MoAFS) and the National Statistical Office (NSO) of Malawi. These differences illuminate yield-reporting deficiencies and the value that alternative, politically unbiased yield estimates could play in understanding policy impacts. We use net photosynthesis (PsnNet) as an objective source of evidence to evaluate production history and production potential under a fertilizer input scenario. Even with the most generous harvest index (HI) and area manipulation to match a reported error, we are unable to replicate post-FISP production gains. In addition, we show that the spatial delivery of FISP may have contributed to popular perception of widespread maize improvement. These triangulated lines of evidence suggest that FISP may not have been the success it was thought to be. Lastly, we assert that fertilizer subsidies may not be sufficient or sustainable strategies for production gains in Malawi.

Fertiliser subsidy and agricultural productivity in Senegal

AbstractThis paper tackles one of the most complex and multifaceted agricultural policy decisions faced by African governments; that is, whether it makes sense to subsidise fertilisers. It combines a data envelopment analysis to compute efficiency scores and regression analyses that deal with self‐selectivity and endogeneity issues to examine the productive efficiency of farmers who benefited from the subsidy programme in the very atypical irrigated system of the Senegal River Valley. The results based on farm‐level data indicate that the subsidy programme seems to be working, as it appears to be associated with increased efficiency; hence, providing empirical support to the political will to revamp subsidy programmes. The results also suggest various ways to improve the effectiveness of the subsidy programme in conjunction with additional policy options to further unlock the agricultural potentials of the region.

Variable Returns to Fertiliser Use and the Geography of Poverty: Experimental and Simulation Evidence from Malawi

We use large-scale, panel experimental data from maize field trials throughout Malawi to estimate the expected biophysical returns to fertiliser use conditional on a range of agronomic factors and weather conditions. Using these estimated returns and historical price and weather data, we simulate the expected profitability of fertiliser application over space and time. We find that the fertiliser bundles distributed under Malawi's subsidy programme are almost always profitable for improved hybrid seeds at retail and farmer-reported maize and fertiliser prices. Our results on the profitability of fertiliser under Malawi's subsidy programme are robust to a tripling of fertiliser prices, to a 50% decrease in the maize price and to drought conditions. We also correlate the estimated expected returns to fertiliser use with geographically disaggregated estimates of headcount poverty rates. We find a very weak positive correlation between poverty and the expected returns to fertiliser, which calls into question whether fertiliser subsidies are spatially distributionally progressive in helping to reduce poverty among Malawian farmers.

An Economic Analysis Based on Equivalent Variance of the Fertilizer Subsidy: A Case of Mahaweli System H in Sri Lanka

The theory of equivalent variance postulates that, cash transfers are preferred over material subsidies as overall production is expected to increase if the government grants a cash transfer equivalent to the value of the material subsidy. In line with this theoretical argument, the government of Sri Lanka recently undertook a major change in the agriculture subsidy policy by converting the material fertilizer subsidy in to a cash transfer. However this policy reform has received many criticisms from several parties, including the farmers and farmer representatives. The study aims at analysing the economic impact of this policy change on the paddy output by employing macro and micro perspectives. The analysis is based on time series data from 1961 to 2013 at national level and survey data on the Yala seasons of 2015 and 2016 at micro level. The survey was conducted using cluster sampling method and Meegalewa Grama Niladhari division in Mahaweli System H was selected for this purpose. The findings of this study indicate that fertilizer is a significant determinant of the paddy output in Sri Lanka. Further, it was revealed that the government has not allocated a cash transfer equivalent to the material fertilizer subsidy provided under the former subsidy scheme. Thus, a significant reduction can be expected in the paddy output in the Yala 2016. The study recommends that the government should grant equivalent cash transfer or encourage organic fertilizer usage in order to reap the benefits of this policy change.

Can Agricultural Input Subsidy Help The Poor More Than Food Aid Supplies In Malawi?

The study compared the pro-poorness of food aid and fertilizer input subsidy in Malawi. As a land-locked country food imports in Malawi are very expensive. The fertiliser subsidy enables farmers to grow more of their own food rather than rely on imported handouts in an increasingly volatile global market. The study relied on food aid and fertilizer subsidy data from Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS) of 2005. The survey was drawn using a two-stage stratified sampling procedure based on population census. The population covered by the survey was all individuals living in selected households. The sample frame includes all three regions of Malawi: North, Centre and South. The survey stratified the country into rural and urban strata. The total sample was 11,280 households. We analysed the data using Distributive Analysis Stata Package (DASP) procedure as indicated in Araar and Duclos (2009). In doing this, we compared the Lorenz curve of per capita consumption expenditure with concentration curve of participation in food aid distribution or fertilizer subsidy in the household. The result from the analysis reveals that food aid is not allocated based on food need in Malawi. For example, the proportions of under-weighed in Centre and Northern regions were about 40% and 28% respectively, and each of the region was allocated about 32% of free food aid. It also shows that the distribution of food-for-work is more pro-poor than that of free food aid, while fertilizer subsidy distribution is more pro-poor than any of the food aid. However, none of the three programmes is well-targeted at poor households and the differences among the three programmes are trivial. This is beacause the share of the poorest household in the fertilizer subsidy, free food and food for work aid were only 19.8%, 19.7% and 20% respectively. This implies that more has to be done to improve targeting of fertilizer subsidy and food aid distribution to reach the intended beneficiaries which are poorest housholds in Malawi. The starting point is to ensure that the most food insecured region(s) and rural areas are well targeted in the distribution of food aid and fertilizer subsidy.

Economic Effect of Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers on the Yield of Maize in Oyo State, Nigeria

The study analyzed the economic effect of organic and inorganic fertilizers on the yield of maize in Oyo State, Nigeria. The study used purposive sampling techniques and data were collected from one-hundred and twenty maize farmers through a well- structured questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics like multinomial logit regression and budgetary technique analysis. Results from descriptive analysis showed that 76.70% of the maize farmers were male while 78.90% were above 50 years old. The results further revealed that 66.70% of the farmers were married while 40.00% had secondary education and above. Majority (83.4%) of the respondents had about at least 5 members that constitute the household in the study area. It was revealed from the results that 90% of the farmers interviewed chose farming as their primary occupation. Also, 54.2% of the farmers had at least 4 hectares of farm size while 53.3 % of them had at most 21 years of farming experience. The determinants of choice for organic fertilizers were educational level, access to loan, access to extension contact, primary occupation and farm size, the determinants of choice for inorganic fertilizers were found to be educational level, primary occupation, farming experience, membership of cooperative and farm size. From the costs and returns breakdown of organic fertilizers users in the study area, the cost ratio showed that an inorganic farmer user that invested ₦1 realized ₦1.59 as revenue or gained ₦0.59k on each Naira expended, while an organic farmer user that invested ₦1 realized ₦1.67 as revenue or gained ₦0.67k on each Naira expended. If inorganic fertilizer will be difficult to access by farmers, then government must encourage farmers to use the organic type due to its cheapness and availability. It is therefore recommended that government should embark on moves that will encourage youths’ involvement in maize production and prevent the fertilizer subsidy program from going into extinction.

The Political Economy of Fertilizer Subsidy Programs in Africa: Evidence from Zambia

AbstractFertilizer subsidy programs have re‐emerged as popular policy tools in sub‐Saharan Africa. Despite a burgeoning body of literature on program impacts, the political economy of the programs remains poorly understood. In particular, there is a dearth of empirical evidence to support or refute the conventional wisdoms that governments systematically target subsidized inputs to certain areas based on past voting patterns and that fertilizer subsidies win votes. This article discusses the theoretical links between government targeting of subsidized fertilizer and voter behavior, then uses panel data from Zambia to empirically test these conventional wisdoms. Results suggest that Zambia's Movement for Multi‐Party Democracy governments targeted more subsidized fertilizer to households in areas where it had strong support in the previous presidential election. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, marginal changes in the scale or coverage of the fertilizer subsidy program had no statistically significant effect on the share or number of votes won by incumbent presidents.

Resource use efficiency among maize farmers in Ghana

Despite the enormous importance of maize in Ghana, maize farmers in the country continue to experience low yields, making Ghana self-insufficient in the production of the crop. For maize farmers to be helped to increase productivity, the focus should not only be on whether or not they have adopted productivity-enhancing technologies, but it is necessary to carefully examine whether they are even making maximum use of the technologies or inputs available to them. This study analysed resource use efficiency for Ghana’s maize farms. The data used were obtained through a cross-sectional survey of 576 maize farmers in the Northern Savannah, Transitional, Forest and Coastal Savannah zones of Ghana using structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, stochastic frontier analysis and the ratio of marginal value product to marginal factor cost were the methods of analysis employed. The results showed that generally, maize farmers in Ghana were inefficient in their use of resources available to them. Fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, seed, manure and land were underutilized, while labour and capital were overutilized by the farmers. The results further showed that maize farmers in Ghana exhibit increasing returns to scale, indicating that the famers can increase their output by increasing the use of some of the key resources. Incentives and strategies aimed at encouraging farmers to optimize the use of fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, seed, manure and land are recommended to ensure improved maize productivity in Ghana. Currently, incentives and strategies could take the form of better management by government of the current fertilizer subsidy programme and efficient input distribution through farmer-based organizations to ensure easy access by farmers.

Fertiliser Subsidy and Technical Efficiency of Smallholder Farmers in Selected Districts in the Transitional and the Guinea Savannah Zones of Ghana

The study examined the impact of Ghana’s fertiliser subsidy programme on maize output and technical efficiency among smallholder farmers in Ghana. Several null hypotheses were tested based on data gathered from a sample of three hundred and fifty-two (352) farmers drawn from two of Ghana’s five agro-ecological zones, the Transition zone and the Guinea savannah zone. Both a probit and stochastic frontier models were used to estimate the determinants of access by farmers to fertiliser subsidy and to assess the impact of the fertiliser subsidy programme on maize output and technical efficiency, respectively. Among others, the study found that age, sex, education, access to improved seed, off farm activities, political influence and distance to the nearest fertiliser retail shop influence farmers’ access to subsidised fertiliser. The study also revealed that access to subsidised fertiliser was low (42.3%) although it positively increases maize output in both Guinea savannah and Transition zones. The study estimated mean TEs of 68.7% and 68.9% in the Transition and the Guinea savannah zones respectively. Also, access to subsidy was found to decrease TE of smallholder farmers in both zones significantly. It is therefore concluded that access to subsidised fertiliser has a mix effect on maize output and needs further investigation.