What is the Scope for Increased Fertilizer Use in Kenya?

Despite upward trends in fertilizer application rates on maize fields over the last twenty years, there remains a perception in Kenya that fertilizer use is not expanding quickly enough and that application rates are not high enough to reverse the country’s growing national food deficit. In 2007, this manifested in the creation of a comprehensive multi-million dollar fertilizer and improved seed subsidy and training program, the National Accelerated Agricultural Inputs Access Program (NAAIAP), with the objective of raising food production and farm productivity. However, little nationwide and longer term evidence exists to determine whether higher fertilizer application rates are profitable for farmers and whether they would have an incentive to continue using it on commercial terms after graduating from the subsidy program.