Rabat – Global food security, particularly in Africa, needs serious attention amid the lingering COVID crisis and the Ukrainian war. As the continent’s challenges become acute, OCP Africa is bidding to work hand-in-hand with farmers and unlock the continent’s agricultural potential.
Speaking at the 2022 Africa Forum, OCP Africa’s CEO Mohamed Anouar Jamali stressed the need to provide customized fertilizers to African farmers to produce positive results for a variety of crops.
Themed “Africa: between challenges and opportunities,” the forum was held on Thursday by the French Council of Investors of Africa (CIAN) in partnership with the French news outlet L’Opinion.
For Jamali, the challenges facing Africa when it comes to attaining food security are not only limited to production and logistics costs; they also include making fertilizers that are especially designed for local needs. “The challenge is not just to produce, but to have a high quality agricultural production because we want to enable the consumer to consume local products,” he emphasized.
Read also: Why OCP Matters for Africa’s Food Security Goals
The OCP official went on to highlight that the Group considers farmers and value chain stakeholders as real agents of development. “Today, OCP Africa develops about 15 formulas adapted to different crops in the different areas where we operate,” he said.
Jamali believes that adopting techniques like mechanization, irrigation, adapted seeds, digital soil mapping and customized fertilizers recommendations are key to ensuring food security in the continent.
Since launching its African branch in 2016, OCP has been investing heavily to develop the agricultural sector in Africa. Building on its experience with fertility maps in Morocco, the company led a similar project in Ethiopia with the Agency for Agricultural Transformation (ATA).
Jamali noted that the Group has developed a “specialized formula that is much cheaper than the one used by the Ethiopian government,” and tests with the new formulas have shown that yields have improved by up to 37%.
“The Group deploys several initiatives and programs for the benefit of farmers by contributing to the development of integrated agricultural ecosystems,” he added.
Read Also: Smart Innovative Agriculture To Meet Africa’s Food Security Challenges
Of OCP Africa’s milestones and successfully implemented projects in the last five years, the CEO particularly recalled the launch of the “OCP School Lab” and “Agribooster” initiatives.
The School Lab consists of a mobile school and laboratory that seeks to support farmers through the provision of soil analysis and recommendations for the application of fertilizers to meet the needs of local soils and crops.
It also offers training sessions for small-scale local farmers to raise awareness on good agricultural practices while making them more familiar with the use of customized fertilizers and reasoned fertilization techniques.
Meanwhile, the Agribooster program is an inclusive development model that aims to support Africa’s agricultural value chain by assisting local farmers in increasing their yields and productivity and ensuring they have the right fertilizer and resources.
For OCP Africa, the program with Ivory Coast is part of a broader pattern of the Moroccan company’s pledge to improve agriculture in Africa and help the continent attain food security.
Agribooster also focuses on connecting farmers to financing and insurance, engaging them with local extension agents for training on proper fertilizer use. In 2020, the program provided improved,customized fertilizers to help the farmers of eight Ghanaian regions alleviate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on smallholder farmers.
The project also aims to support 430,000 smallholder farmers, including 104,000 women and facilitate their access to quality and affordable agricultural inputs.
As OCP Africa was created to inspire and contribute to an agricultural revolution in Africa, the key focus of the pan-Africanism-driven company over the past six years has been to develop the agricultural sector across Africa to make it more resilient, sustainable, and profitable for farmers.
