The OCP Group has disclosed the plan to triple its production capacity by producing 20 million tons of fully sustainable soil nutrients by 2027.
The Morocco-based company made its objective known at the United Nation’s Environmental Assembly as policy makers from around the world gathered this week in Nairobi, Kenya.
To re emphasise the company’s commitment to various investments that involve climate change and the environment, OCP says it has committed a sum of $13 billion greening investment strategy between 2023 and 2027 to make the company’s water and energy use 100 per cent renewable in 2024, and 2027, respectively.
OCP has also invested the sum of $7 billion in producing green hydrogen and green ammonia from wind and solar power, to enable the company meet its own needs for ammonia, a major but energy-intensive component of some fertilizers, by 2032, in addition to setting an ambitious target of achieving full carbon neutrality by 2040.
The group leads the sector in R&D spend, with its scientists both in the lab and on the land, researching new products, services and solutions for farmers, enhanced by a growing range of international research partnerships dedicated to making sustainable agriculture a reality.
OCP group is a global company; however, its focus is on the African continent, where crop yields are less than 25% of what they could be.
Hence in order to close this wide gap in crop yields, the company has allocated 4MT of its total production to Africa, over a quarter of its output, and invested some $5 billion in new production capacity in Morocco, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Ghana, and Nigeria respectively.
From the data generated by the mapping and analysis of soils across 50 million hectares of Africa, OCP’s scientists have designed over 40 fertilization formulas customized to meet specific local soil, crop, and climate conditions.
OCP has also trained over a quarter of a million African farmers in climate and nature-positive farming techniques using these customized soil nutrients, and achieving significant yield increase: 25% for maize in Tanzania, 35% for rice in Ghana, and 113% for teff in Ethiopia, among others.
OCP Group is reputed for its high profiles in championing the crucial role of soil health, particularly in Africa, in addressing the planetary issues and making sustainable agriculture and increased food production a reality in the continent
The company whose headquarter is in Morocco is the custodian of 70 per cent of the world’s known phosphate reserves, an essential nutrient for healthy crops and soils, but half of all soils, particularly in Africa.
The focus of the conference this year is on the triple planetary crisis of climate change; pollution; biodiversity loss and land degradation.
The OCP group will be spreading the message among the 193 countries and 4,000 delegates who are participating in this year’s UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya.
OCP says practical and effective solutions to the triple planetary crisis can be found in African soil, through unleashing its potential to feed not only Africa but also to become a guarantor of global food security at the same time as combating climate change and conserving the environment.
