Morocco’s fertilizer company OCP Group and Ghana have agreed to develop a fertilizer value chain “as part of the Government of Ghana’s newly designed Fertilizer Expansion Program (GFEP)”, according to an OCP’s statement. The Ghanaian minister of agriculture, Owusu Afriyie Akoto, and the CEO of the Moroccan fertilizer company, MostafaTerrab, signed a Memorandum of Understanding earlier this month.
Both sides are going to cooperate to improve the fertilizer value chain, aiming to supply “customized fertilizers at affordable prices to farmers.” The official statement also says that OCP Group and the Ghana’s government will seek to improve the crop nutrient value chain at the farmer level by “targeted farmer-centric and agronomic initiatives, providing appropriate inputs to farmers and supporting them with adequate training, soil mapping, field trials and fertilizer formula development.”
OCP Group and Ghana will develop the fertilizer production sector in the Western African country by exploring “the feasibility of setting up a fertilizer production plant, that could combine natural gas from Ghana and phosphate from Morocco to produce customized high quality and affordable fertilizers.” Thus, the joint venture will introduce “fertilize blending” into the fertilizer value chain in order to make “customized mineral fertilizers” which will comply with “soil- and crop-specific nutrient requirements”. Once implemented, the project is projected to create job opportunities, decrease fertilizer prices and increase the use of fertilizers by farmers in Ghana. Fertilizer consumption by Ghanaian farmers is reported to be among the lowest in the world.
OCP Group is one of the leading exporting and producing companies of phosphate-based crop nutrients globally. The group’s revenue in the first quarter of 2018 reached MAD 9.7 billion, down from nearly MAD 10.9 billion in the same period in 2017.Earlier this year, the Moroccan company also launched a national campaign in Ethiopia to assist the Ethiopian government in its agricultural planning, whereby both sides are planning to finish works on a pilot zone of 100,000 hectares of arable lands by next month to complete a majorresearch project analysing the country’ fertility level. According to OCP agricultural engineers, the results of this soil analysis will provide more detailed information on the requirements for a more sustainable and productive agriculture in Ethiopia, particularly with respect to what fertilizers should be used for specific types of soil.
