Amid the fertiliser crisis, Africa has a chemical-free option: Agroecology

Building more fertiliser factories in Africa will also mean more toxic pollution for local communities. People living near the phosphate factories of the Groupe Chimique Tunisien in Gabes, Tunisia, have been fighting for years to shut it down because of how the pollution is damaging people’s health, land, and waters. And the impacts are not just local. Chemical fertilisers are one of the leading contributors to climate change, responsible for more global greenhouse gas emissions than air travel.

We must look at this moment in an entirely different way. Rather than boosting African fertiliser production to replace what’s blocked in the Gulf, governments across the region should urgently redirect subsidies and policy initiatives to support agroecology.

The fact is that, for much of Africa, local foods are produced without chemical inputs. Farmers don’t use them for traditional crops like cassava in West Africa, sorghum in the Sahel, or banana around the Great Lakes. They are often reserved instead for cash crops, for export.

Furthermore, across West and North Africa, farmers’ organisations are advancing agroecological methods that avoid chemical fertilisers. Groups such as Beo-neere, the Convergence des Femmes Rurales pour la Souverainete Alimentaire, and the Nous Sommes la Solution movement support tens of thousands of farmers across several countries. In Tunisia, the Network for Agroecological Transition and the Tunisian Association of Permaculture promote fertiliser-free food systems, including the “Nourriture Citoyenne” (citizen food) label for produce grown without chemical inputs.

Evidence shows that agroecology can increase food production on farms, strengthen farmer livelihoods and provide multiple ecosystem benefits. A series of studies conducted in the 2000s of 208 agricultural projects across 52 countries, involving 9 million farmers, found yield increases of 50-100 percent for various food staples, including cassava, sweet potato, millet, maize and sorghum, when environmentally sensitive agricultural techniques were applied.

In Senegal, researchers found that farmers using agroecology had 17 percent higher yields and 36 percent higher incomes than their conventional counterparts; in Brazil, these numbers were respectively 49 and 177 percent. Yet, for agroecology to reach its full potential, the economic cycle that keeps farmers tied to monocropping and export markets at the expense of feeding their own communities must be broken.

Agroecology is the most appropriate way forward to bring sustainability back into our food systems. It’s also perfectly in line with the determined call coming from 60 governments gathered in Colombia last month to phase out fossil fuels in order to truly fight climate change.

What better argument do we need to prioritise local food systems and the empowerment they offer, instead of fossil fuel-based fertilisers that just reinforce corporate control and climate dystopia?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.