Subsidized fertilizers fail to reach rural farmers in Kogi State (Kogi Reports) 

Kogi Reports (Nigeria) published an article stating that farmers in Nigeria want and need fertilizer. Fertilizer is an important agricultural input as it helps maximize crop yield. Significantly, fertilizers help the soil increase its fertility. By implication, it promotes better growth. But farmers are unable to access the important farm input in the desired quantity. Farmers claim this is due to the high cost of fertilizer. Even though there is a government subsidy program, farmers say they have yet to see any benefit–they opened accounts, but fertilizer never came.  According to a 2008 IFPRI report, “The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) recognizes that the nation’s food security can be improved mainly through increasing agricultural productivity, and has instituted various interventions aimed at precipitating widespread adaptation of intensive farming technologies. By scope and financial commitment, the most important intervention is the subsidization of inorganic fertilizer.” The document said that since the late 1970s, fertilizer had been heavily subsidized, “with rates that have been as high as 95 percent. The pattern of total fertilizer consumption in Nigeria has mirrored the ebb and flow of federal and state government subsidies and the almost annual changes in procurement and distribution rules.”