BRASILIA (Reuters) – The national fertilizer plan, launched on Friday, aims to reduce Brazil’s dependence on imports of these products from 85% today to 45% in 2050, the Ministry of Agriculture said.
The country’s large dependence on foreign purchases of fertilizers, the largest global importer of these inputs, is worrying, said Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina, considering that Brazil is a major food producer.
This situation was accentuated with the war in Ukraine, involving Russia, normally the main supplier to Brazilians.
According to the minister, Brazil’s demand for external fertilizers, despite the expectation of reduced dependence on imports over the next 30 years, will still be in 2050 “proportionate to the greatness of our agriculture”.
“But our external dependence will be greatly reduced… We are not aiming for self-sufficiency… commodities will continue to circulate in a free market environment… however, we need to guarantee supply for our most important economic activity”, stated Cristina.
According to the National Union of Fertilizer Raw Materials Industry (Sinprofert), the plan has the potential to increase the national production of fertilizers by 35% by 2025, with the capacity to attract investments of around 4 billion reais per year.
The minister said that the Brazilian plan will be based on sustainability, investment attraction, science, technology and legal certainty, “to maintain modern and stable legislation”.
She also stated that the government will follow the plan’s goals, regardless of political interests. “This is a state plan, not a government plan,” she said.
The special secretary for Strategic Affairs at the Ministry of Agriculture, Flávio Rocha, also said during the ceremony that the government should support the conclusion of works to expand the national production capacity, among other initiatives.
21 unfinished works have already been identified that could be completed and generating national production of fertilizers, he added, without giving details.
Also according to the plan, actions by Embrapa to optimize the use of fertilizers can promote savings of 20% in the use of fertilizers, with potential cost reductions of around 1 billion dollars in the 2022/23 harvest.
The agricultural research company will make a “caravan” to the productive regions to provide technical assistance to farmers, Embrapa reported last week.
Rocha also said that the government wants to encourage bio-inputs to deal with fertilizer shortages.
(By Lisandra Paraguassu; text by Roberto Samora; edited by Letícia Fucuchima)
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