Rabat – Brazil’s Minister of Agriculture Marcos Montes is expected to visit Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt later this week to discuss increasing fertilizer imports from these countries.
Planned to start on May 6, Montes’s working visit to North Africa is expected to last from eight to ten days, according to Reuters.
Initially, the Brazilian official scheduled the visit for last month, April, but it was delayed due to Ramadan.
“It’s a pilgrimage that we are calling fertilizer diplomacy,” Montes said in an interview with Reuters on Monday, noting that he will be joined by private sector representatives during the visit.
Brazil also aims to encourage foreign investors to produce fertilizers in Brazil, the Brazilian minister added.
Despite Brazil being a large exporter of agricultural products, it depends on imports for about 85% of its fertilizer needs.
The South American giant “is concerned about a potential global shortage of the products after Western nations imposed sanctions on key producers Belarus and Russia, while China restricted exports,” Reuters highlighted.
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Morocco is currently the third largest fertilizer supplier to Brazil, after Russia and Belarus.
The North African kingdom represents, alongside other countries such as Qatar, Egypt and Oman, 26% of the fertilizers imported by Brazil, who seeks to find new sources to meet its fertilizer needs amid a severe disruption in supplies from Eastern Europe.
As Brazil depends primarily on Russian and Belarussian fertilizer exports, the war in Ukraine is having severe impacts on its agriculture. The Brazilian government now plans to increase fertilizer imports from Arab countries to 30% or 35%.
Montes’s planned visit to Morocco comes a few weeks after he held a meeting with ten Arab countries to address Brazil’s urgent search for fertilizer supplies.
During the meeting, Brazilian officials and representatives of several Arab countries, including Morocco, pledged to increase their supply of fertilizer to the South American country.
Nabil Adghoghi, Morocco’s ambassador to Brazil, recently highlighted the contribution of the OCP Group to Brazil’s agriculture.
The Moroccan state-owned company is the world’s largest exporter of crude phosphate with a steadily growing fertilizer business, which has helped it become the key player in the African fertilizer market and an essential actor in worldwide markets.
Ambassador Adghoghi also spoke about the North African kingdom’s potential to play a major role in logistics connectivity between Brazil and Arab countries, stressing the status of Morocco’s Tanger Med port as a world-class platform for exports to the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
