<p>In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), smallholder farmers are increasingly adopting organic fertilizers as a sustainable, cost-effective alternative to expensive imported chemical fertilizers. While the micro-level benefits of this shift are well documented, a critical gap remains in understanding its dynamic, economy-wide impacts on regional food production. This study investigates the drivers of organic fertilizer utilization and quantifies its short-and long-run effects on cereal productivity in SSA. Using a 23-year panel dataset (2000–2022), we employ a Random Effects model to identify adoption drivers and a Pooled Mean Group/Autoregressive Distributed Lag estimator to analyze productivity impacts, with robustness checks using a Fixed Effects model. Our findings reveal that organic fertilizer use is primarily driven by livestock holdings, arable land area, rural population size, and total agricultural labor. Conversely, it is significantly discouraged by GDP per capita and agricultural capital stock, indicating a concerning substitution effect where synthetic fertilizers replace organic inputs. Crucially, organic fertilizer exerts a significant positive effect on cereal yields in both the short and long run. Productivity gains stem from intensifying existing arable land rather than expanding cultivation area. A heterogeneity analysis further shows that organic fertilizer use increases with GDP in low-income countries but decreases in middle-income countries. We recommend policies that promote integrated crop-livestock systems and design context-specific fertilizer programs to sustain organic input use during economic transitions. A key limitation of this study is its inability to account for the full economic costs and co-benefits of organic fertilizer use, a vital area for future research.</p>