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Rabat – Morocco’s OCP CEO Mostafa Terrab has stressed the importance of Africa’s potential to become self-sufficient to solve the continent’s food security challenges.
In a new interview with the Financial Times, Terrab emphasized Africa’s potential and resources to tackle food security challenges affecting many countries around the world, including on the continent.
“We [in Africa] should be totally self-sufficient, and even export,” Terrab said, emphasizing that “big opportunities” exist on the continent.
A 2019 study acknowledged the low use of fertilizer in Africa as one of the critical challenges the continent is facing.
“Agricultural productivity increase is only possible with the use of yield-enhancing technologies like infographic fertilizer,” the joint study from the African Union Commission and the UN Economic Commission for Africa in collaboration with the Africa Fertilizer Financing Mechanism has said.
The study confirmed that low fertilizer use on the continent hinders agricultural productivity, the report said.
“Compared with other developing regions, fertilizer consumption in Africa has only risen marginally between the years 2000 to 2015,” the study detailed.
OCP Group has been taking promoting fertilizer use and African resources as one of its priority missions.
The group has been intensifying Morocco’s fertilizer production, which contributed largely to boosting Africa’s agricultural yields.
“In the wake of the Ukraine war, OCP, which supplies 70 percent of fertilizer in Africa, gave more than 500,000 tonnes to smallholders in sub-Saharan countries, some of it free, the rest at a discount,” Financial Times reported.
Terrab stressed OCP’s strategy of developing customized fertilizers that meet farmers’ needs.
“It is cheaper to customise because we use less nutrients. We don’t force farmers to buy what they don’t need,” Terrab said.
OCP officials have frequently called for intensified efforts to boost Africa’s potential.
In a recent blog post published on the World Economic Forum, Terrab emphasized that the continent has the potential to become the “world’s farm” and to solve food security across the globe.
Aware of the challenges facing the continent, Terrab said: “As a Moroccan company, we know this challenge is especially acute on our home continent. By 2050 Africa’s population is expected to nearly double.”
A 2022 report published by Development Gateway shows that 80% of the fertilizer consumed across sub-Saharan Africa is imported.
The Ukraine-Russia conflict has exacerbated the food security challenges worldwide, particularly on the African continent.
Despite its potential, the continent faces acute food insecurity.
In 2022, the World Bank quoted alarming data from the 2022 Global Report on Food Crisis.
According to the data, “at least one in five Africans goes to bed hungry and an estimated 140 million people in Africa face acute food insecurity.”
