As Soil Health Takes Center Stage At The Sixth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA6)

Oluchi Chibuzor

The world’s environmental policymakers have gathered this week in Nairobi (Kenya) for the UN Environment Assembly, held every two years to set the global environmental agenda.

The focus of the conference this year is on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and land degradation. Morocco is playing a leading role in these vital deliberations: the conference is chaired by Morocco, and OCP Group (the world’s leading soil and plant nutrition solutions producer) has had a high profile in championing the crucial role of soil health, particularly in Africa, in addressing these issues.

From the current 8 billion , there will be 9.7 billion people on the planet by 2050, requiring a 50 percent increase in food production. At the same time, climate change may reduce crop yields by up to 30 percent. Ensuring food security while addressing the triple planetary crisis demands a radical transformation of food systems.

OCP Group’s senior experts attending the conference have been drawing on their company’s experience to set out to policymakers how this just agricultural transition can be achieved, through setting the right policies and building international partnerships to foster and harness a collaborative global drive towards this goal.

Headquartered in Morocco, OCP is the custodian of 70 percent of the world’s known phosphate reserves, an essential nutrient for healthy crops and soils but deficient in about half of all soils, particularly in Africa. With over a century of expertise, an expected turnover of $14bn in 2025, some 20,000 employees and customers on five continents, OCP is investing massively in both sustainable production and sustainable farming.

Since 2012, OCP has tripled its production capacity and aims to expand to produce 20 million tons of fully sustainable soil nutrients by 2027. Its Green investment strategy will devote $13bn between 2023-2027 to make the company’s water and energy use 100% renewable this year, and 2027 respectively.

$7bn will be invested in producing green hydrogen and green ammonia from wind and solar power, enabling OCP to meet all its own needs for ammonia, a major but energy-intensive component of some fertilizers, by 2032. The company has set an ambitious target of achieving full carbon neutrality by 2040.

But OCP’s commitment to sustainability does not stop when its products leave the factory gate. It is committed to a farmer-centric strategy (a long-term approach to optimizing plant nutrition, soil health and farmers’ livelihoods) to create sustainable financial and social value for future generations.

OCP leads the sector in R&D spend, with its scientists both in the lab and on the land, researching new products, services and solutions for farmers, enhanced by a growing range of international research partnerships dedicated to making sustainable agriculture a reality.

Their reach is global but their focus is on Africa, where crop yields are less than 25 percent of what they could be. To close that « yield gap, OCP has allocated 4 metric tonnes of its total production to Africa, over a quarter of its output, and invested some $5bn in new production capacity in Morocco, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nigeria and Ghana.

From the data generated by the mapping and analysis of soils across 50 million hectares of Africa, OCP’s scientists have designed over 40 fertilization formulas customized to meet specific local soil, crop and climate conditions. Over a quarter of a million farmers have been trained in climate- and nature-positive farming techniques using these customized soil nutrients, achieving significant yield increases: 25 percent for maize in Tanzania, 35 percent for rice in Ghana, and 113 percent for Ethiopia.

At the same time as boosting yields, OCP is showing how restoring soil health naturally absorbs carbon from the atmosphere as organic matter is built up within the soil, acting as a carbon sink and shifting agriculture from climate negative to positive.

As an African company, OCP is spreading the message among the 193 countries and 4,000 delegates in Nairobi that practical, effective solutions to the « triple planetary crisis » can be found in African soil, through unleashing its potential to feed not only Africa but also to become a guarantor of global food security at the same time as combating climate change and conserving the environment.