Field, a measure of land use efficiency in crop production – but also to low nitrogen use efficiency and growing air and water pollution.

Recent technological advances and environmental policies have reversed this trend. More nitrogen is going into the crops and less as pollution. Consequently, both nitrogen efficiency and crop yield increase.

Unfortunately, much of Asia is now following the same historic path of increasing fertiliser use and its accompanying pollution. This is because there is not enough attention on managing nitrogen for high efficiency.

Brazil, on the other hand, is following an intermediate path by doing this with growing nitrogen fertiliser use, growing crop yield, medium efficiency levels, and more modest increases in pollution than in other transition countries.

Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa clearly have been using too little nitrogen. They are depleting their soils and producing poor crop yield and this means unhealthy soils and people. The challenge lies in how to get farmers to increase their nitrogen input while maintaining high nitrogen efficiency and avoiding pollution.

In most African soil more nitrogen could be added before leaching or gaseous loss becomes a serious risk. There are exceptions, like leaching through very sandy soils or poorly timed additions. Fertilisers must have the appropriate balance of all essential plant nutrients, so that the crops can efficiently use the nitrogen.

High-efficiency pathway for Africa

How Sub-Saharan Africa moves forward in the next few decades is critical. A nitrogen intensive, low efficiency pathway like China today, the US and western Europe post-WWII is the costly path for both economy and environment. Inputs would need to quadruple, and about half of that would be lost to the environment as air and water pollution. That scenario is neither economically nor environmentally sustainable.

If the region can forge a new high-efficiency pathway to development, leap-frogging the low-efficiency phase and moving directly to higher nutrient inputs with high efficiency, then fewer expensive nitrogen fertilisers will be needed and human nutrition can improve with little environmental harm.

But following the second pathway demands much more effort, both domestically and internationally. It will involve stable and transparent governance, appropriate policies, technological transfer and capacity building.

It should be possible to triple current average cereal crop yields, from 1 ton/ha to 3 ton/ha while also managing for high efficiency and low pollution. This will require some subsidies of fertilisers and seed sources to make them affordable. They will also need market access for farmers to purchase inputs and sell goods and improved extension services to ensure their proper use.

The ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals by countries has shown the political will for reducing hunger and developing sustainable agriculture. Technologies and policies to help Africa move towards the high-efficiency pathway are available. The challenges are whether the political will in international and national arenas will be translated into support for farmers, tailored to local climate, soil type, and socio-economic conditions. This is essential to obtain and wisely use nutrient inputs to make soils and families healthier.