Soaring Prices of Fertilizer Likely to Cause Low Yields This Year

The cost of fertilizer exploded in 2021, and farmers across the country are going to be hit even harder this year as they prepare for the planting season this year. A bag of DAP is currently going for Sh5,000 in Mombasa and Sh6,000 for Urea, which may increase to Sh7,000.

As the nation struggles to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of supply chain disruptions continue to wreak havoc on agricultural input markets, both in terms of availability and cost of inputs. The Russian-Ukraine war has escalated the situation causing food, oil and gas prices to increase.

Based on current spot market prices, it appears that fertilizer prices are up 80% compared to 2021, and in some cases, farmers are witnessing fertilizer prices more than double the price sold last year. This increase in cost may lead to losses to the farmers. Decrease in crop yielding due to poor harvest that will cause not enough food to feed a large population. Again it may result to less reliable crops as not many farmers will choose to use the fertilizer.

This increase may also lead to higher cost of transportation of farm yield from farms to consumers, as they try to maximize on profit and also less nutritional crops. It will lower farmers profit and increase the cost of living and food prices for the common “mwananchi”.

We should be prepared for high cost of living as we hope for the economy to stabilise.