SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Chemical fertilizers can significantly improve agricultural productivity but their environmental sustainability is much debated. This paper contributes to a growing body of research on the drivers of chemical fertilizer use under climate vulnerability. We study the impact of climate risk (measured as rainfall abundance, rainfall variability, temperature and temperature shock) on fertilizer use by Tanzanian maize farmers using Probit regression analysis on spatially disaggregated agronomic panel survey data for the years 2016 and 2017. Our results show that fertilizer use is extremely sensitive to climate risks, even when accounting for actually observed input prices, the main contribution of this study. Our findings suggest that as the climate crisis escalates with erratic rainfalls and warmer climate, chemical fertilizers will become increasingly less reliable to ensure food security for a growing population as farmers’ fertilizer adoption decision is highly responsive to climate variability. This lends support to arguments that perfunctory promotion of chemical fertilizers is at odds with sustainable intensification agricultural policies.