African Potash has finalized a fourth fertilizer deal under its agreement with the African free trade area, COMESA, and secured a source of supply for its first contract. The most recent memorandum of understanding (MoU) is for 150,000 MT (metric ton) of fertilizer for Congolese farmers. African Potash, a company focusing on building a vertically integrated platform for the mining, production and distribution of fertilizer throughout Africa, will deliver the fertilizer as part of the deal to supply at least 500,000MT of the nutrient to groups selected by COMESA.
The company’s CEO, Chris Cleverly, said that “no region of the world has been able to expand agricultural growth rates, and thus tackle hunger, without increasing fertilizer use.” He added that “despite economic growth rates of 8.9 percent in 2014, according to World Bank figures the Democratic Republic of Congo currently uses only 1kg of fertilizer per hectare of arable land whereas India uses 16kg per hectare and the United Kingdom uses 234kg per hectare.” African Potash had previously supplied 250.000 tons of the fertilizer to Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
At the same time, the company also announced that it had finalized a deal on the supply of 50,000 tons of fertilizer from South African Cudulog to serve its customers in Zambia. The supply deal was finalized at the East and Southern Africa Fertiliser Trade Platform (ESAF) annual conference and fertilizer Expo held in Lusaka, Zambia, and Cudolog will deliver 50,000 MT of fertilizer to selected destinations.
Mr Cleverly added that “having established a sale price of US$500 per MT in respect of the 50,000 MT of fertilizer product to be supplied in connection with our first trading MoU, we are now pleased to have concluded this agreement for fertilizer supply, which provides us with access to the required quantity and quality of fertilizers, at competitive pricing structures.“COMESA, one of the pillars of the African Economic Community, is a free trade area covering 20 Member States. It was founded in 1994 and replaced a Preferential Trade Area that had existed since 1981.
