Presidential Fertilizer Initiative to save Nigeria US$200 million

The President of Fertilizer Producer and Suppliers Association of Nigeria (FEPSAN), Thomas Etuh, remarked that the aim was to increase NPK fertilizer production to 1 million metric t throughout the 2017 wet season farming and to 500 000 metric t throughout the 2017 dry farming season.

“This idea came out of the need to solve the problem of of perennial unavailability and inaffordability of fertilizers and more recently the sharp increase in the price of NPK fertiliser which reached an all time high of between N9000 and N10,000 in 2016,” Etuh said, as reported by The Nation.

Etuh continued: “We are monitoring some of the plants of the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative which is a public-private partnership. Some of you will remember that FEPSAN signed an agreement with OCP of Morocco to order phosphate as one of the raw materials for the production of fertilizer. We only import 37% of the inputs we don’t have in Nigeria, which is urea and limestone to get fertilizer to the farmers.

“From that 14 December 2016 to 14 February 2017, we gave farmers free gift. They start to receive fertilizer at N5500. Agro-dealers also get theirs, when they come to a plant like this, they will pay N5000, they are supposed to pay for transport and others so they will sale for N5,500.”

“This is a PPP arrangement, there is no subsidy at all. We will save government in six months about N60 billion and save the government about $200 million in foreign exchange.”

Read the article online at: https://www.worldfertilizer.com/sulfur/16032017/presidential-fertilizer-initiative-to-save-nigeria-us200-million/