Jul 12, 2010
Brazilian Scientists Focusing on Reducing Fertilizer Imports
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
Brazil imports 90% of its potassium fertilizer, which has many farmers and government officials concerned due to the recent volatility of fertilizer prices. After fertilizer prices doubled during the 2007/08 growing season, the Brazilian government started a concerted effort to reduce its dependence on imported fertilizer by finding and developing more domestic supplies of fertilizers. Their most recent effort has been the formation of a research network called Rede FertBrasil.
This network of researchers includes 138 scientists from 22 divisions of Embrapa (the national agricultural research service) and 73 scientists from other research institutions, universities, as well as the agricultural extension service. The objectives of this new scientific network is to transfer technologies that improve the efficient use of available fertilizer supplies, develop new organic alternatives to mineral fertilizers, as well as finding and developing new domestic supplies of mineral fertilizers.
On the organic front, the coordinator of the network feels that 10 to 15% of Brazil potassium needs could be met by more efficiently utilizing manure from poultry and swine production. Another important source of organic potassium is the byproducts from sugarcane processing. In theory, these two sources combined could replace 25% of Brazil imported potassium.
On the mineral front, Embrapa scientists and geologists have also found new silicate mineral
deposits in Brazil from which potassium could be extracted. Developing new mining operations is a
long and costly process, but the scientists are confident that they will eventually be able to
replace all of Brazil's current imported potassium with domestic produced supplies.
Petrobras has also been aggressively expanding its presence in the nitrogen fertilizer markets by purchasing or constructing several new nitrogen plants which utilize natural gas from Bolivia to produce nitrogen fertilizers.
The agribusiness community and the federal government both realize that if Brazil is to become a world leader in agricultural production it must significantly reduce its dependence on imported fertilizer supplies.