FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Patrice Annequin, AfricaFertilizer.org Coordinator (+233 302 770 838, pannequin@ifdc.org)
February 18, 2015 – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – AfricaFertilizer.org’s newly designed and expanded website www.AfricaFertilizer.org goes live today. The launch takes place as part of the Argus FMB Africa Fertilizer 2015 Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, attended by more than 400 of the world’s key fertilizer industry actors operating in Africa. The revamped website equips fertilizer actors with rich resources and market information on fertilizer products, supply and operators, filling a longstanding knowledge gap that has traditionally inhibited Africa’s food security and agricultural development.
Africa is home to 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated, arable land, but processes like nutrient depletion, pollution and erosion severely limit its ability to produce its own food supply. Both business actors and policymakers require solid data and reliable, up-to-date and accessible market information to inform their strategies. Public and private sector actors came together in 2009 to address this challenge via AfricaFertilizer.org, which is a powerful, multi-sectorial initiative lead by the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) in partnership with the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the African Union (AU) Commission.
“AfricaFertilizer.org brings together the world’s best resources and expertise from global leaders in the fertilizer industry and makes it available to the world in an easy-to-access platform,” said Patrice Annequin, AfricaFertilizer.org Coordinator. “This newly expanded website addresses a critical information gap – by providing market actors, farmers and policymakers with the data, contacts and market information they need to develop an informed and powerful response to address Africa’s food insecurity. From the world’s leading fertilizer producer to a smallholder farmer, this site puts access to information at one’s fingertips.”
“AfricaFertilizer.org is a very comprehensive and extremely useful source of information on the African fertilizer market, and the new website is expected to enhance its value to all stakeholders of the African fertilizer value chain” said Patrick Heffer, Senior Director of IFA’s Agriculture Service. “With 2015 as the UN-designated International Year of Soils, AfricaFertilizer.org represents a significant opportunity to empower sector actors with the resources and information they need to realize Africa’s agricultural potential. Today marks an exciting moment for all of us working to promote agricultural development and sustainability.”
The website, which goes live today, features new content and media including company profiles, product catalogues and business directories. The redesign also incorporates bold colors, graphics, completely new navigational tools and a responsive design viewable via computer and smartphone. The site’s new features include:
- A fertilizer directory providing a comprehensive listing of agribusiness and fertilizer production companies operating in Africa, with data available in the form of tables and maps.
- A searchable database of officially traded fertilizers, with accompanying production capacity data and market prices.
- In addition, users can visualize data integrated from numerous sources (including existing international platforms like FAOSTAT and CountrySTAT, national data and crowd-sources statistics) to create graphs and see trends, enabling real-time data comparisons and analysis.
To see the expanded new site, visit www.AfricaFertilizer.org.
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More Information on the AfricaFertilizer.org Partnership
AfricaFertilizer.org is an innovative, cross-organizational force of five public, private, and multilateral partners to spur sustainable agricultural develop and food security in Africa. The initiative is led by the International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC) in partnership with the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the African Union (AU) Commission.
IFDC is a public international organization addressing the critical issues of international food security, global hunger and poverty, environmental protection and economic and self-sufficiency. Through its work, IFDC increases developing countries’ agricultural productivity through the creation and transfer of sound crop nutrient technologies and agribusiness expertise. IFA represents the global fertilizer industry and ensures farmers everywhere have the crop nutrients they need to grow. AFAP is a non-profit partnership that unites the expertise and dedication of the public and private sectors to create competitive and sustainable fertilizer markets for Africa’s smallholder farmers. The FAO collates and disseminates food and agricultural statistics through its CountrySTAT web-based information technology system, covering 37 Sub-Saharan African countries. The African Union Commission and its implementing agencies aim to affect policy and market to improve farmers’ fertilizer access and their incentives for wider use across Africa through its Fertilizer Support Programme.
