Brazil-Africa Forum Outlines OCP’s Contributions to Brazilian Agriculture

Rabat – Talks at the 2021 Brazil-Africa forum explored the urgency of deepening and strengthening long-term partnerships between Brazil and the African continent, with many panelists drawing attention to OCP Group’s role in Brazilian agriculture as an inspiring model of Brazilian-African agriculture cooperation.

Arguing that the African continent saw a noticeable improvement in agriculture due to the implementation of Brazil’s approach in agricultural development, the forum’s participants shed light on the Brazilian experience and the importance of Morocco’s OCP phosphates in Brazil’s agriculture.

One of the panels of the two-day forum, themed “Helping farmers achieve better results: the Brazilian experience,” focused on finding solutions to help small producers who can’t afford buying the suitable substances and products to make their soil or land more fertile.

The panelists discussed the importance of green energy and phosphate to help farmers, with many pointing out that the revenues of those small producers represent the major part of their total income.

Among the major ideas discussed during the panel was the notion that renewable energies are a great way to combat global warming and help the farmer save money as it can produce electricity for heating, lighting, and fuel for use on the farm, while phosphate is an essential ingredient in all fertilizers.

Highlighting the pivotal role agri-business plays in Brazil, which generates about over a hundred billion dollars, Olavio Takenaka, President of OCP Fertilizantes, commented on OCP’s efforts to help Brazilian companies based on phosphate.

Morocco supplies Brazil with mostly fish, such as sardines, and fertilizers, mostly phosphate or phosphate-based – fertilizer sales amounted to $650 million last year.

Although several companies in Brazil are actively looking for ways to boost their production, the country still depends on imports, with imports of macronutrients reaching over 80%.

“The greatest producer and source of phosphate in the world is Morocco. Brazil imports about 40% of phosphate from Morocco annually,” Takenaka said, adding that Morocco is a natural partner for the Latin American country.

In addition, he went on, Morocco has the world’s largest reserves of phosphate, with some estimates that the country currently holds 50 billion metric tons in reserve, the equivalent of approximately 70% of the world’s phosphate reserves.

A decade ago, phosphate revenues in the country accounted for $4.2 billion in the national purse. The figures increased to approximately $5.7 billion in 2020, marking a nearly 27% increase in the country’s income through phosphate, according to Morocco’s Foreign Exchange Office.

“Ever since Morocco opened its office in Brazil 12 years ago, they have been a great partner who supplied us with what we need in terms of phosphate,” Takenaka said.

Brazil’s efforts to help farmers

Economic globalization has been very important for any sector, some panelists said, arguing that it has increased global trade and led to more competition. In turn, this can spread wealth more equally and boost farmers’ production, they suggested.

As agricultural production grows much faster with globalization, the profit of the agriculture production comes in large scale. The panelists debated over the future of small farmers with no scale who don’t gain much profit.

Roberto Rodrigues, former President of the International Cooperative Alliance and of the Brazilian Cooperatives Organization, stressed that Brazil has created cooperatives to help farmers access fertilizers with a reasonable price.

“The cooperatives make sure that the small farmers buy products they really need. It reduces costs for them. The cooperatives add value,” he said.

For her part, Sueme Mori Andrade from the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), emphasized that CNA works with smaller producers and with value chains that aren’t very common in the region such as honey, fishery, and spices. She noted that these value chains have a great importance for Brazilian farmers.

“We represent more than 2 million agriculture producers and we have a very strong agricultural sector,” she said.

Panelists also focused on how to ensure sustainability within the agriculture sector.

Alexandre Moraes do Amaral, an international strategy advisor to the executive director of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), highlighted the strategies developed by the company to further improve science agriculture and agricultural practices that are sustainable and based on scientific research and technological innovation.

“EMBRAPA’s major contribution to Brazilian agriculture is something that can be replicated in the African continent very easily while focusing on sustainability along the way,” he commented.

The panel also shed light on “tropicalism,” with Amaral arguing that action taken in the past helped Brazil to improve its agriculture.

He spoke about the tropicalization of products such as plant-based or animal-based products as well as the contribution of these products to the enrichment of the Brazilian ecosystems.

“Tropicalization also contributed to the development of a sustainable production platform that involved the private sector and the Brazilian agriculture and universities,” Amaral underlined, highlighting that science-based sustainability is “the greatest contribution that EMBRAPA has given to Brazil.”

He explained, “In the 60s and 70s, soybeans in Brazil were planted in the southern area of the country.” However, due to technological advances and the constant innovation of research centers, “the cultivation of soybeans started to expand to central and western areas of Brazil.”

Recalling social concerns raised in many countries about food during the COVID crisis, CNA’s Andrade stressed that “30% of Brazil’s exports consist of soybeans.”

She alluded to the global panic that greeted the first weeks of the COVID crisis as countries faced the challenge of guaranteeing food supplies for their populations amid an unprecedented worldwide lockdown.

“Last year during the pandemic, many countries reached out to CNA wondering whether Brazil would put any food restrictions on exports,” she said. “No country is self-sufficient, [even though] in Brazil, we have resilient food production.”

Brazil got to where it is today thanks to investments in science, technology, entrepreneurship, Rodrigues said, adding that the country kept growing even after the world’s crisis thanks to its sustainability.

“Nobody expected Brazil to flourish over ten years and become an agricultural powerhouse,” OCP’s Olavio Takenaka underlined.

He continued, “We hope to cooperate not only with Morocco but with EMBRAPA and other cooperatives as well. I think the partnership between Brazil and Morocco is very important due to the strategies that both countries have.”