Brasília – This Monday (23rd), the Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said it is of strategic importance for Brazil to boost its fertilizer production in order to lower dependence on foreign products, reduce costs, and increase the competitiveness of Brazilian agriculture. The statement was made in Rosário do Catete, in the state of Sergipe, at the signing ceremony for a contract between Petrobras and Vale to lease potassium reserves.
"Fertilizers are crucial to our food security, to our ability to supply our population, to ensure our agriculture will remain competitive, and to lower our production costs. A country that possesses the technology to convert carnallite into potassium cannot have 90% of its potassium supply dependent on foreign product, as we do,” said the president.
The president of Vale, Murilo Ferreira, informed that Rosário do Catete will host the largest potassium extraction plant in Brazil, and will play an important role in reducing Brazil’s dependency on imported fertilizer. “Right now, Brazil imports 70% of all its fertilizer, and in potassium imports that rate goes up to 90%. Our fertilizer output is growing, but so is the demand, because the country is now the fourth leading fertilizer-consuming market in the world.”
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
