Smallholder farming, fertilizer use, and the polycrisis period: Cross-country evidence from longitudinal surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa

Smallholder agriculture continues to be the main source of livelihood for a large portion of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population. In recent years, compounding crises and shocks have threatened this livelihood basis. How did smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa fare throughout this period? What measures did they take to cope with the repeated disruption to their farming activities? We address this knowledge gap using nationally representative, cross-country comparable longitudinal microdata collected from over 16,000 agricultural households in six Sub-Saharan African countries between 2018 and 2024. While overall fertilizer adoption remained relatively stable, we find considerable cross-country heterogeneity and poorer households to be more likely to have discontinued fertilizer use. At the intensive margin, 47% of farmers could not access their desired quantity of fertilizer. On average, these farmers used less than half as much inorganic fertilizer as they desired with affordability being the main constraint. Households adopted a range of coping strategies, some of which may compromise productivity and heighten future vulnerability.