APNI Strategic Brief 2021-2025

Strategic
Brief
2021
2025
Critical Actions for
Sustainable Transformation
AFRICAN
PLANT NUTRITION
INSTITUTE
www.apni.net

The African Plant Nutrition Institute (APNI) is a newly created not-for-profit research and
development organization with core competence in plant nutrition. Our founders saw the
critical need to improve soil fertility and plant nutrition in Africa with the goal of enhancing
the livelihoods of farmers and rural communities, while also increasing the availability of
nutritious food.
Mission and Vision
Vision: Prosperous African farmers sustainably managing crop nutrition to provide
consumers with a secure supply of nutritious foods at a reasonable price.
Mission: Enhanced plant nutrition for a resilient and food-secure Africa.
APNI Headquarters
Benguérir, Morocco
North Africa
Settat, Morocco
The continental vision of APNI
is currently delivered through its
headquarters in Benguérir, Morocco,
and its regional offices in Nairobi,
Kenya; Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast;
and Settat, Morocco.
West Africa
Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast
East & Southern Africa
Nairobi, Kenya
APNI’s expertise is in plant nutrition. Therefore,
APNI’s overriding goal is to make this expertise
available to improve crop performance through
better management of plant nutrients and enhanced
soil health. Implementing better plant nutrient
management practices will lead to productive and
sustainable landscapes, and prosperous livelihoods.

Foreword
Strategic Vision of APNI
Welcome to the Strategic Vision of the African Plant Nutrition Institute
(APNI). Developing the strategy for a new Institution is an exciting yet complex
enterprise. More so when the process identifies the niches for an Institute
operating in the diverse space of agricultural development in Africa.
As rapid population increase drives up the requirement for agricultural commodities
in Africa, the options for the Continent would appear either to produce its own, or import
from elsewhere. With 60% of the global uncultivated agricultural land bank, the choice
should be obvious. However, in reality, crops yields are low and over half of the arable
land is degraded. The quest for fertile land is creating biodiversity and ecological
challenges, millions of smallholder farmers are in subsistence mode, and food and
nutritional insecurity is high. With our core competence in plant nutrition research and
development, we see a clear role for APNI to activate the fundamental changes needed for
sustainable transformation of agricultural systems in Africa.
Dr. Kaushik Majumdar,
Director General

The low fertility of African soils, aggravated by many
years of farming without enough nutrient replenishment,
is a major contributing factor to the low crop yields
achieved, and the subsequent negative social, economic,
and environmental impacts. The role of plant nutrition in
improving crop yield is well recognized globally. However,
it is not only about yields anymore.
APNI’s research for development
is geared at contextualizing nutrient management
through a clear understanding of constraints.
Our Institute will communicate data, information
and knowledge freely to support other
institution’s efforts to build capacity and address
the range of challenges faced.
To be effective, plant nutrition must be precise enough to
deliver both improved nutrient use efficiency and reduced
ecological impact from agriculturally applied nutrients. We
believe these co-benefits should be pursued as vigorously
as the biggest challenges to humanity in the 21st Century.
To be sustainable, plant nutrition needs to improve soil
health to enable the production of large quantities of
high-quality food and commodities, especially under the
anticipated climate trends and weather variations that
are increasing the uncertainty in African productions
systems. These themes define the strategic niches
of APNI. Working closely with strategic partners and
farmers, the committed researchers and educators of
APNI will focus on understanding the fundamentals
behind deriving multiple benefits through precise nutrient
management and associated best agronomic practices;
and deliver solutions that help large numbers of farmers
make tailored decisions for their crops and growing
environments.
The conundrum around the low adoption of improved plant
nutrition practices in Africa cannot be solved through
better science only. Farmers must have access to the right
fertilizers at the right time, access to the right advice and
knowledge to use fertilizer properly, and finally access to wellpriced
markets that can translate fertilizer investments into
higher income, farm prosperity, and resilient social structures.
However, the lack of well-developed infrastructure affects the
whole value chain. Farmers in general, and women and youth
farmers in particular, face major bottlenecks in navigating
this gamut of challenges.
APNI’s research for development is geared at contextualizing
nutrient management through a clear understanding of
constraints. Our Institute will communicate data, information
and knowledge freely to support other institution’s efforts to
build capacity and address the range of challenges faced.
Effective and efficient plant nutrient management provides
one of the biggest levers for future food and nutritional
security, climate resilience, and poverty alleviation in Africa.
The strategic thrust of APNI is well positioned to contribute
to the desired change.
This document was enriched by the collective expertise
of scientists, educators, extension specialists and policy
makers well rooted in the agricultural developmental issues
in Africa. I am grateful to each of these excellent partners
and well-wishers, our external consultants Dr. Ed Rege and
Dr. James Cock, the Scientific Advisory Committee, the
APNI Board and its Chairman, Mr. Hicham El Habti, and our
exceptional staff for their support in defining the Institute’s
strategy for the next five years.
Dr. Kaushik Majumdar, Director General

African Agriculture
Africa is now home to more than one
billion people, with the fastest rate of population
growth on the earth. African agriculture trails other
parts of the world in both land and labour productivity.
Food prices in Africa are consistently higher than in
the rest of the world. Africa now imports more than
a quarter of its cereal needs. One in five Africans is
undernourished and many millions more live with food
insecurity. There is clearly a need for a sustainable
increase in the productivity of African agriculture.
Over the past fifty years, crop yields have increased in
most of the world to meet the demand for agricultural
products. These productivity gains lessen the need
to bring new land under cultivation, thereby reducing
the pressure to convert forests and other fragile
environments to crop land. These gains in crop yields
have been invariably accompanied by more effective
plant nutrition, based on proper fertilizer use and
improved soil fertility management. However, yields in
Africa in the past five decades have increased little, while
the area of cropped land has almost doubled. Despite
this massive expansion in farmland, population pressure
continues to drive down farm size and the locally
produced food supply per capita declines.
Africa’s population and annual population
increase (current and projected).
Percent change in cereal crop yield and area for Africa
and the World (1968 vs. 2018).
3
2.5
2
+41.7 M/yr
Yield
Current yield average = 1.6 t/ha
Current yield average = 4.0 t/ha
75%
135%
Billion
1.5
1
0.5
0
Source: OWID
+32.7 M/yr
2020 2050
105%
Area
5%
Africa
World
0% 50% 100% 150%
Source: FAOStat

Properly managed soils supporting resilient
and abundant crops will be pivotal to the development of profitable and productive
agricultural value chains and is an essential step to greater equality and a better life in Africa.
Degraded soils are common
across Africa and this insidious environmental
damage continues to spread as soils are intensively
cropped and additional land is brought into
cultivation. Fertilizer application rates in Africa are
only about 20% of the world average, leading to
inadequate nutrient replacement and contributing
to low farm productivity, declining soil fertility,
and further land degradation. Caught in this cycle,
countless farmers and farm workers live in poverty,
often supporting their livelihoods with off-farm and
part-time employment.
Furthermore, African agriculture is providing neither
sufficient quantity nor the variety of food needed to
sustain a healthy population. The situation is further
complicated by Africa’s complex mix of agro-ecosystems
with a diverse range of crops, farming systems, and
landscapes that are continually affected by short-term
weather aberrations and long-term climate change.
Food security in Africa may be considered from three
distinct points of view:
s s s
the poor who have neither the resources to produce
nor the purchasing power to buy sufficient food;
the better off who do not always have access to
healthy food options; and
national food security.
For the rural poor, especially those who do not
produce enough to feed themselves, the priority
is to help them become more prosperous so they
can purchase sufficient nutritious food to satisfy
their food needs. For those with higher disposable
incomes, the provision of healthy foods is often
taken for granted. However, increased availability of
healthier foods would make it easier for all citizens
to obtain an appropriate diet. At the national level,
food security depends on government policies that
guarantee the supply of basic foodstuffs, even during
times of crisis.
Ensuring the availability of plentiful low-priced staple
foods, abundant healthier food products, and prosperity
in the rural sector requires a strategic division of roles
within the farming community, with each sector requiring
distinct support.
s s s s
The small-scale farmer is limited in access to land
and must produce more value per unit of land area to
become prosperous.
The larger African farms need to increase both land
productivity and labour productivity to build a domestic
food supply less reliant on imported food.
The millions of African small-holder women farmers
who are often the cornerstone of household food
security require better access to land, inputs, capital,
information, marketing opportunities, and decision
support to increase their land and labour productivity.
The rapidly increasing youth population needs
functional and productive agricultural value chains,
supported by modern farm technology and methods
that take the drudgery out of farming and make life on
the farm interesting, fulfilling, and prosperous.
3.
FOOD SECURITY:
Points of View
national food
security
1.
2.
the resource
poor
the better off who lack
access to healthy food options

APNI will provide support to increase the productivity and the quality of high-value and
staple food crops for small, medium, and large-scale farms as a contribution to
(i) increased prosperity in rural areas; (ii) greater accessibility of healthy food; and (iii) a
secure supply of low-cost staple foods.
Catalytic Role of APNI in
Knowledge Generation and Dissemination
Improved plant nutrition, particularly
greater adoption of appropriate rates of balanced
fertilization, is an essential ingredient for increased
productivity in African agriculture. Appropriate genetic
material, better pest control, increased access to
irrigation and mechanization, improved financing and
market access, and a better-educated work force all play
a part in increasing agricultural productivity. However,
none of these advances will make a major impact without
adequate and balanced fertilizer use. APNI’s strategy
revolves around providing information, knowledge and
critical methodologies to partners who help African
farmers improve plant nutrient management for a wide
range of crops and farming systems.
African agriculture is highly diverse. There are relatively
few staple commodity crops, while a large number of
high-value crops and differentiated crop products
exist. APNI has the opportunity to develop novel
research strategies for high priority crops using modern
information technology, remote sensing, and big data
analytical techniques to efficiently generate knowledge
on appropriate crop nutrition.
APNI will be at the forefront of developing these
innovative methodologies with strategic partners,
ensuring that they will be applied to multiple crops
grown over a range of conditions.
APNI develops fundamental and applied knowledge, know-how, and
methodologies. By working closely with strategic research and
development partners, we ensure that these advances are
adapted to specific local conditions and crops and
then adopted by farmers.

APNI will work closely with national and international partners to understand the
social, commercial, infrastructural, policy, and economic reasons for the low adoption
of modern plant nutrition practices.
Rather than working directly on the
entire array of crops and cropping systems, APNI plays
a catalytic role in targeting selected high-priority crops,
assisting multiple agencies from the public, quasi-public
and private sectors to improve the nutrition of crops and
the cropping systems with which they are associated.
While research and innovation are at the heart of APNI,
there is also an urgent need to build the capacity
of African farmers, agronomists, and academics
so they can develop and adapt appropriate nutrient
stewardship practices for their specific crops and
environments. Education on proper plant nutrition is
clearly a fundamental part of this process and APNI will
work with key partners in facilitating education that
empowers relevant institutions and practitioners.
This collaborative effort involves working with
stakeholders to assemble plant nutrition information
in user-appropriate formats and to provide
accessible and impactful information.
A thorough understanding of why African farmers do
not use more fertilizer is a vital step to overcoming
current constraints on improved crop nutrition.
This knowledge will be shared with national
agencies, policy-making bodies, businesses, and
collaborators in the fertilizer value chain as a key
element in their efforts to remove these constraints
and stimulate greater fertilizer use in Africa.
Average Fertilizer Application Rates per Hectare of Arable Land (2007 to 2017).
Nutrients kg N+P 2 O applied, 5 +K 2 O per kg/ha
Source: FAOStat
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017
World
North Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa

Critical Actions for
Sustainable Transformation
While many principles of
plant nutrition have been well explored, APNI has
identified two themes where major knowledge
gaps still hamper progress in Africa: i) Climate and
Weather-Smart Plant Nutrition, and ii) Soil Health
for Improved Livelihoods. APNI will link these two
themes into a third theme of iii) Precision Nutrient
Management, which applies concepts of sitespecific
precision agriculture to plant nutrition.
Adoption of precision agriculture—based on data
capture, information interpretation and analysis,
and implementing a management response—will
certainly improve plant nutrient management
decisions. By working with data from multiple
sources, including farmer knowledge and
experience, APNI can address a much wider range
of soil types, weather conditions, cropping systems,
and landscapes than with traditional experimental
methodologies alone.
This approach opens the way to provide farmers
with information tailored to the specific conditions
farmer’s face throughout their fields. APNI will
develop template methodologies to capture
and analyse information and then convert the
generated knowledge into actionable, scaleindependent
information. This will be of great value
to our partners who can apply these templates
while addressing opportunities in a wide range of
cropping situations.
Modern communication systems offer prospects
for farmers to interact with others to share
experiences and obtain information and guidance
on how to make better decisions. Thus, we
envisage farmers being able to easily obtain
information and exchange knowledge on inputs
and services, price and weather forecasts, plant
nutrient strategies, and other management
options that improve their farming practices.
We expect that by incorporating skills in
managing modern information technology,
farmers can actively share information and
participate in knowledge generation. As modern
technology and information become easily
accessible, life on the farm will be more attractive,
especially for the youth, many of whom are
currently leaving the rural life in the hope of
finding more appealing opportunities in the city.

APNI develops fundamental and applied methodologies to capture and analyse agronomic
information and then convert that knowledge into actionable scale-independent practices
that partners will apply to a wide range of cropping systems.
Agricultural research on plant
nutrition in Africa has largely concentrated on the
biological and physical aspects of how to produce
higher yields of basic staples and commodity crops.
Despite this research, Africa lags the world in fertilizer
use, and soil health is too frequently overlooked.
Complex socio-economic conditions and the diversity
of African society underlie the chronic deficit in the
plant nutrition required to achieve food security.
This scenario prompts us to consider the many barriers
to increased nutrient use as a means to improve
crop growth and soil health in Africa. A thorough
understanding of why farmers are unable to maintain
soil health and provide adequate crop nutrition is
an essential component for the development of
sustainable precision nutrient management.
APNI will work closely with national and
international partners to understand the social,
infrastructural, political, and economic reasons
for low adoption of improved plant nutrition,
especially commercial fertilizer use, in Africa.
This knowledge will be made available to national
agencies, policy-making bodies, and businesses
in the fertilizer value-added chain to help them
remove these constraints.
.

THEME ONE:
Climate & Weather-Smart
Plant Nutrition
C
limate change affects plant nutrition, in part, through increasingly variable weather
patterns. APNI will explore the consequences of both slowly changing climate trends and the more
frequent weather extremes on farming systems, and generate strategies on how farmers can adapt
plant nutrient management practices to these novel conditions.
These climate insights will then be used to provide guidance on
(i)
(ii)
how changing weather patterns influence the interactions of crop nutrition and yield,
the nutritional quality of food, and soil health;
adjusting plant nutrition interventions to variation in weather patterns; and
(iii) farm management options for reducing the effect of plant nutrition practices
on climate change.
APNI will partner with agencies
that have the expertise on climate change and
forecasting probable weather patterns, paying special attention
to the random variation surrounding the long-term trends.

THEME THEME TWO: TWO:
Soil Health for
Improved Livelihoods
This theme brings together existing and new knowledge on the impact of plant
nutrition on soil health. The potential of plant nutrition to simultaneously boost soil health and
crop quality has not yet been extensively explored. There are many unexploited opportunities
for plant nutrition interventions to improve soil health, crop quality, and the nutritional value of
human food and livestock feed. However, farmers are unlikely to adopt improved management
practices that enhance soil health and crop quality unless there are incentives.
We will also explore how plant nutrients can be managed within healthy agricultural systems and
landscapes to sustain yields of more nutritious and better-quality crops. Under this theme, APNI will
(i) evaluate the role of plant nutrients in enhancing soil health;
(ii) develop business models that provide better livelihoods for farmers from healthy
soils and greater crop quality associated with proper plant nutrition; and
(iii) assess how balanced plant nutrition confers benefits through the soil-plantanimal-human
health continuum.

THEME THEME THREE: TWO:
Precision
Nutrient Management
The precision nutrient management theme brings together knowledge from
multiple sources (including those generated in Themes One and Two) to provide African
farmers with the capacity, information-management tools, the social and economic
environment, and other resources required to provide better nutrition for crops. The requisite
research and development for precise nutrient management relies on co-innovation with
strategic partners from a wide range of agencies and businesses working together.
Research will provide the knowledge required for the establishment of social, policy,
commercial, and technical environments that foster enhanced plant nutrition. This outcome
will empower farmers to better manage the source, rate, time, and place of crop nutrition
within their specific environmental, social, and economic context. Under this theme, APNI will
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
develop protocols and processes for obtaining and analysing information on plant nutrition
and its interactions with cropping systems, soil health, crop yield, and product quality;
generate data according to the FAIR* Guiding Principles;
implement decision-support systems for precise nutrient management;
establish networks for scaling knowledge and building capacity in precision nutrient
management; and
identify the reasons for low fertilizer use by farmers to enable changes in policy and
infrastructure.
.*Fair data meet the standard of being Findable, Accessible, Inter-operable,
and Reusable.

Well-fed Crops for a Well-fed Africa
We Believe
• in the power of knowledge to make the world a
better place;
• success is achieved by teams, with each member
contributing distinct talents and skills;
• our knowledge should be evidence-based and
freely shared;
and We
• are committed to a better-fed Africa and a more prosperous
rural sector, with none left behind;
• strive for interventions that lead to a healthy, congenial, and productive rural environment;
• know that without improved plant nutrition, African agriculture will lag the rest of
the world;
• respect the opinions and beliefs of partners, so that together we can reach our
common goals;
• depend on the wisdom and knowledge of others;
• learn from our experience and interaction with others;
• do not tell others what to do, rather help them make informed decisions;
• embrace FAIR data management policies and offer access to data from our research
and development activities;
• are a service-oriented organization, working with partners to make farmers more
prosperous; and
• maintain high ethics and professional standards in all that we do.
APNI Offices:
Headquarters - Benguérir, Morocco
North Africa - Settat, Morocco
West Africa - Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire
East & Southern Africa - Nairobi, Kenya
www.apni.net