Poster prepared by Bekele Kotu, Job Kihara, Yangole Luanda, Stephen Lyimo, Mateete Bekunda, Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon for the Africa RISING ESA Project Review and Planning Meeting, Lilongwe, Malawi, 3–5 October 2018

1. Economic analysis of fertilizer options for maize production in Tanzania
Bekele Kotu1, Job Kihara2, Yangole Luanda3, Stephen Lyimo3, Mateete Bekunda1, Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon1
1International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, 2International Center for Tropical Agriculture 3Selian Agricultural Research Institute-Tanzania
Contact: b.kotu@cgiar.org
Challenges & Study objective
 The little use of inorganic fertilizer in Tanzania has hampered
productivity growth among the smallholder farmers.
 This is partly because of the negative attitude of farmers towards
inorganic fertilizers
 Soil fertility management options (including inorganic fertilizers) have
been experimented by the Africa RISING team in Babati and the results
show that most of the new options are better than the farmers
traditional practice in term of grain yield.
 However, the economics of these soil fertility management options is
little known.
Main study objective: The objective of this study is to compare different
fertilizer options in terms of financial benefits in maize production.
This poster is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
September 2018
We thank farmers and local partners in Africa RISING sites for their contributions to this work. We also acknowledge the
support of all donors which globally support the work of the CGIAR centers and their partners through their
contributions to the CGIAR system
Introduced technologies
(i) Diammonium Phosphate (DAP)
(ii) Minjingu rock phosphate (MG)
(iii) Minjingu Mazao (MM)
(iV) Minjongu Mazao+ farm yard manure (3t/ha)
(v) Farm yard manure only (6t/ha) (FYM)
Evidence
Approaches of taking the technologies to scale
Scaling may follow the mainstream extension system supported by R&D
platforms. Targeted subsidies may also enhance adoption of the fertilizer but
this should be done with a clear exit strategy.
Proposals for the future
Studies will be needed to monitor the adoption of the technologies,
bottlenecks to adoption, impacts on livelihoods of the farmers. These
studies should be integrated with existing interventions in such a way
that their findings can be used to enhance the success of the
interventions.
Note: The result is based on the experiment conducted from 2014-2016 in four villages of Babati District;
*Minimum wage rate for agricultural services during 2013-2016 was about $1.75 per day
Productivity Economic
Value of grain ($/ha) Value cost ratio Returns to labor
($/person day)*
DAP 1565 15.9002 13.9033
MG 1272 9.1719 10.3002
MM 1417 8.8423 11.6190
MM+FYM 1264 6.7071 9.0600
FYM 846 2.9765 3.8757
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Probability
Control DAP FYM+MM FYM MG MM
Gross margin
Figure 1: Cumulative distributions of gross margins for fertilizer options
Figure 2: Risk-adjusted gross margin of fertilizer options
Table 1: Financial benefit of fertilizer options
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Labor
Cash
Yield
Net returnRisk
Accessibility
Affordability
Male Female
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Labor
Cash
Yield
Net returnRisk
Accessibility
Affordability
Male Female
Figure 3: Multidimensional farmers’ assessments of DAP and Minjingu Mazao
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0 0.0001 0.0002 0.0003 0.0004 0.0005 0.0006 0.0007 0.0008
CertaintyEquivalent
ARAC
Control DAP FYM+MM FYM MG MM
Partners
Figure 4: Multidimensional farmers’ assessments of Minjingu Mazao