Latin America seeks other options in the face of fertilizer shortages due to the war in Ukraine | International | News

The shortage of fertilizers as a result of the war in Ukraine is pushing Latin American countries to share methods and practices among themselves in order to deal with this situation, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported Thursday.

A large part of the countries in the region are highly dependent on imports of fertilizers from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and the prices of these products “have already exceeded the record level of the 2008 crisis,” the agency said in a statement. whose regional headquarters is located in Santiago de Chile.

“We need to innovate to face the scarcity and high price of synthetic fertilizers, and the diversification of nutrient sources is a strategy for a more resilient agriculture,” said the FAO representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Julio Berdegué.

Can the cost of cultivating land be reduced by adjusting the amount of inputs and fertilizers without affecting production?

The agency held a seminar this Thursday where experts and authorities from Brazil, Chile, Peru and the Caribbean shared their experiences in the use of biofertilizers and compost and shared techniques such as crop rotation and the use of legumes, which allow substituting or supplement chemical fertilizers.

Organic fertilizers, moreover, “can contribute to making agriculture more sustainable,” said Berdegué.

Options raised in seminar

Among the experiences that were shared in the seminar are the studies of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company (EMBRAPA), which have shown that the complete substitution of chemical fertilizers for nitrogenous ones in soybean cultivation and “the biological fixation of nitrogen with bacteria ” have allowed annual savings of 14,000 million dollars.

In Chile, the Agricultural Research Institute (INIA) has promoted the application of organic matter of animal and vegetable origin in crops and fruit trees, such as chicken manure, dairy manure or earthworm humus, which has reduced fertilization costs and increased production between 5% and 20%, according to FAO.

Another example used in the seminar was that of the Peruvian company BIOEM, which promotes the use of biofertilizers created with a mixture of fungi, bacteria and yeasts.

Effects of the war on the increase in food and fertilizer prices is discussed at the 37th FAO Regional Conference, in Quito

In the Caribbean, meanwhile, different countries have used indigenous microbes to improve the efficiency in the use of fertilizers, which has made “their soils healthier and more productive by increasing their organic carbon content,” the agency explained.

Crop rotation with legumes is another technique recommended by FAO, as they fix between 72 and 350 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare per year and can improve the availability of phosphorus in the soil, reducing dependence on synthetic fertilizers.

“Legumes fix more carbon than cereal crops such as corn or wheat, which helps combat global warming,” explained Teodardo Calles, FAO Agriculture official. (I)

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