Until the latest quarter, the seasonally adjusted series—one with recurring seasonal effects filtered out—had climbed gradually. The reading for agriculture, forestry and fishing moved from 69.06 in the first quarter of 2024 to 71.09 in the fourth, then jumped to 77.12 in the first quarter of 2025. That is the highest observation since the series began at 53.24 in the first quarter of 2010.
Air Emissions Accounts assign pollution to the industries and households responsible for economic activity, rather than counting emissions only where they physically enter the atmosphere. This entry covers nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas commonly linked in agriculture to fertilized soils and manure. A sustained increase would therefore matter for climate targets and for policies covering fertilizer efficiency, soil management and livestock waste.
But this chart cannot yet support a clean claim about how many tonnes Africa emitted. The supplied metadata classifies the measure as percentage-like, which would imply a rise from 71.09% to 77.12%, or 6.02 percentage points. Yet the indicator itself is labelled in metric tons of CO₂ and supplies no denominator for a percentage. Converting nitrous oxide into CO₂-equivalent terms is standard practice, but the label does not clearly say that either.
With no related indicator or external source confirming the break, the safest reading is that the IMF series changed sharply—not that Africa’s farm emissions necessarily rose by the same magnitude. The final observation could reflect a real shift, but a revision, definitional change or one-off correction also remains plausible until the source’s units and methodology are checked.