Overall market risk: Generally, across the countries in West Africa, the farming season is still on, but gradually winding up in most countries, as the raining season subsides. Fertilizers remain available but fluctuations in prices from country to country depending on the level of demand continue. There has been an unrestricted movement and supply from country to country, however, countries experiencing coup d’état have somewhat restricted the movements along their borders, in some cases, totally closed.
As earlier predicted, international prices have been stable or even decreasing in the month under review, but that hasn’t translated into decreased retail prices in some West African region, as some countries are still experiencing higher retail prices due to their own internal peculiar challenges, but on a general scale, prices have been quite stable in most countries with no reports of unavailability.
Cote d’Ivoire: Fertilizer demand has continued to increase, with the international prices being stable or even decreasing in some cases this month. Fertilizer imports have recovered strongly after a year of reduced activities. Since the beginning of 2023, 589,605 tonnes have been imported into Côte d’Ivoire (according to customs data). This volume already represents an increase of 71% compared to the previous year. As mentioned earlier, fertilizer prices are on a downward trend, with a reduction of 17% to 30% compared to the level of the first quarter of 2023, although these prices remain relatively stable compared to June 2023.
Ghana: The country is entering its minor growing season, which starts in September and extends through November. According to data from AfricaFertilizer, Ghana has imported approximately 220,000 metric tons of fertilizer between January and July 2023. In July of this year, Ghana’s food inflation reached 55.0%, slightly higher than the 54.2% recorded in June, with a month-on-month food inflation rate of 3.8%. The inauguration of the second Phase of Planting for Food and Jobs Program aims to revolutionize Ghana’s agriculture by modernizing and enhancing the agricultural sector, with a particular focus on the development of specific commodity value chains and active private sector participation.
In Nigeria, the base application period of fertilizers is gradually ending, which is reducing the quantity demanded especially for NPK’s. As previously reported, there is still a gas supply shortage to the Urea plant. The shortage has resulted in a limited supply of urea, which has seen Urea prices increase this month. Similarly, the cost of raw materials for blending has increased, thereby increasing the retail cost in the market. The high cost of local transportation further worsened this situation, thereby culminating in making prices relatively high.
Senegal: The fertilizer market in Senegal is also dynamic, as in the previous month. An increase in the demand for fertilizer from farmer-producers is noticed, resulting from the current planting period in all production areas of the country. There is an adequate supply of fertilizer from producers and major importers to meet this growing demand. Regarding the subsidy, authorized distributors are busy setting up their quotas at the level of distribution commissions, following notifications received for the distribution of subsidized fertilizers. The implementation of subsidized fertilizers started late in the distribution committees. This August, the introduction of quotas increased significantly, which helped to ensure satisfactory availability of urea, NPK 6-20-10 and NPK 15-15-15 on the market.
In Togo, the State-guaranteed fertilizer stocks are available in all areas of the country and are sufficient to fully meet the growing demand from producers since the beginning of the planting season. Combined with the remaining stocks from the previous season, the volume of fertilizer ordered in 2023 totals 123,500 tons (including 83,500 tons of NPK 15-15-15 and 40,000 tons of urea), exceeding by more than 100% the projected needs of 85,000 tons of fertilizer for the year. The price of fertilizer for the month of August remains unchanged and is similar to that of 2022 from the same period.
Availability and Affordability: Fertilizer markets have relatively returned to normalcy with prices being stable in most retail markets across West Africa, with a few exceptions. Although affordability is still a major issue in some countries, overall availability has been established with no report of any severe shortages. Consumption has increased when compared to last month across the regions, but it has still not returned to what it used to be when compared to previous years.
Distribution: The effect of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war on fertilizers are gradually fading away with importation and distribution returning to normalcy across West Africa. All fertilizer ports and borders are open, apart from Nigeria’s northeast area, which continues to restrict fertilizer movement owing to insecurity and Niger which has gotten import sanctions due to the ongoing coup d’état. Landlocked nations such as Mali and Burkina Faso are using ports in Cote d’Ivoire to import fertilizer.