Government fertilizer subsidies, input use, and income: The case of Senegal

Aymeric Ricome (), Jesús Barreiro-Hurlé and Cheickh Sadibou Fall
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Aymeric Ricome: UMR G-EAU - Gestion de l'Eau, Acteurs, Usages - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - AgroParisTech - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement, Cirad-ES - Département Environnements et Sociétés - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, JRC - European Commission - Joint Research Centre [Seville]
Cheickh Sadibou Fall: ISRA - Institut sénégalais de recherches agricoles [Dakar]

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Abstract: Most Sub-Saharan countries implement input subsidy programs (ISPs) in an attempt to increase fertilizer use, crop yields and farmers' income and to improve household food security. Senegal is no exception and has had an ISP in place for the last 15 years. This article assesses how access to subsidized fertilizer under the ISP is associated with changes in fertilizer and manure use and gross margin. Using household-level data from two agroecological zones, we employ an endogenous switching regression framework to control for the potential endogeneity of access to subsidized fertilizer. We find that access to subsidized fertilizer is associated with an increase in the total use of fertilizer of +39 % but also with a reduction in the use of commercial fertilizer of 18 %. Access to subsidized fertilizer is also associated with a reduction in the likelihood of using manure of 5 % and an increase in farmers' total gross margin of 11 %. Results are heterogeneous across agroecological zones, with a strong crowding-out of commercial fertilizer where widely available to farmers. In this case, revising the design of the ISP could lead to improved efficiency.

Keywords: Fertilizer subsidies; Crowding-out; Endogenous switching regression; Senegal; Fertilizer subsidies Crowding-out Endogenous switching regression Senegal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-env
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04586374v1
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Published in Food Policy, 2024, 124, pp.102623. ⟨10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102623⟩

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Journal Article: Government fertilizer subsidies, input use, and income: The case of Senegal (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04586374

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102623

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