Vice President of the Republic, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has stated categorically that the newly commissioned fertilizer blending plant in the country, Glofert, which produces over 800,000 metric tonnes annually is here to meet Ghana’s high demand for fertilizer.
According to him, “Ghana’s demand for fertilizer is around 600,000 metric tonnes so this factory can meet all of Ghana’s demands of fertilizer” and still have excess in their capacity.
Dr Bawumia further said, “I want to challenge the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the COCOBOD that with the coming on stream Glofert we know that the fertilizer blending plants in Ghana can meet our total demand and still have excess capacity, we, therefore, don’t have any reason to be furthermore importing more and more fertilizer and wasting our foreign exchange in doing so”.
During the commissioning of the largest fertilizer blending plant in Asuboi in the Eastern Region on Thursday, the vice president noted that this initiative under NPP’s 1District, 1Factory is another major step by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to partner private sectors to transform the Ghanaian economy through agriculture and revamp the industrial sector.
He stated that “Agriculture is the nerve center of the Ghanaian economy. Any effort towards growing this sector has direct economic and social impact on the chain of beneficiaries. The time is indeed ripe to move away from being heavily import-dependent to export producing economy”.
He re-echoed that, the 1D1F policy aims at transforming the structure of the Ghanaian economy from one that depends on production and exports of raw materials to one that adds value to what is produced internally.
Chief Executive Officer of Glofert Limited, Foster Mawuli Benson during his presentation at the official opening of the company indicated that the $4.5million fertilizer blending factory produces 120 ton of fertilizer hourly, 2400 metric tonnes a day.
With this large capacity factory, a total of 220 personnel within the Asuboi, Asutuare communities have been employed both directly and indirectly.
Glofert Limited makes available fertilizers tailored to specific soil requirements available to Ghanaian farmers across the country guaranteeing them of a better yield during harvest.
The company supplies all kinds of fertilizers notably Urea, Ammonium Sulphate, as well as NPKs.
He recounted that "Ghana's agriculture over the years suffered serious yield deficits. Even with hybrid seeds that promises about 10-12 metric tonnes per hectare elsewhere only about 4.5metric tons per hectare is achieved in parts of the world. This stands to reason that we suffer up to 50% yield loss due to soil nutrition among other agronomic factors".
But currently, “Ghana can now boast of the most modern fertilizer blending plant able to produce 840,000 metric tons of the various NPK annually".
Mr Benson, therefore, lauded Akufo-Addo for his visionary leadership and "rolling out the 1D1F initiative which is meant to bring development closer to the people and provide jobs for the many unemployed as well as industrialize the nation".
