As the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) came to a close in Nairobi, Kenya at the weekend, the world’s policymakers have set the global environmental agenda to address climate change crisis.

Held between February 26 and March 1, 2024, at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi, the focus of this year’s conference is on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and land degradation.

Morocco played a leading role in the vital deliberations: the conference was chaired by Morocco, and OCP Group (the world’s leading soil and plant nutrition solutions producer), with a high profile in championing the crucial role of soil health, particularly in Africa, in addressing the issues.

From the current eight billion people, there will be 9.7 billion people on the planet by 2050, requiring a 50 per cent increase in food production. At the same time, climate change may reduce crop yields by up to 30 per cent.

The policy makers say ensuring food security while addressing the triple planetary crisis demands a radical transformation of food systems. OCP Group’s senior experts attending the conference have been drawing on their company’s experience to set out to policymakers on how the agricultural transition can be achieved, through setting the right policies and building international partnerships to foster and harness a collaborative global drive towards this goal.

Headquartered in Morocco, OCP is the custodian of 70 per cent of the world’s known phosphate reserves, an essential nutrient for healthy crops and soils, but deficient in about half of all soils, particularly in Africa. With over a century of expertise, an expected turnover of $14b in 2025, some 20,000 employees and customers on five continents, OCP is investing massively in both sustainable production and sustainable farming.

Since 2012, OCP has tripled its production capacity and aims to expand to produce 20 million tonnes of fully sustainable soil nutrients by 2027. Its Green investment strategy will devote $13bn between 2023-2027 to make the company’s water and energy use 100 per cent renewable this year, and 2027 respectively.

$7bn will be invested in producing green hydrogen and green ammonia from wind and solar power, enabling OCP to meet all its own needs for ammonia, a major but energy-intensive component of some fertilizers, by 2032. The company has set an ambitious target of achieving full carbon neutrality by 2040.

But OCP’s commitment to sustainability does not stop when its products leave the factory gate. It is committed to a farmer-centric strategy (a long-term approach to optimizing plant nutrition, soil health and farmers’ livelihoods) to create sustainable financial and social value for future generations.

OCP leads the sector in R&D spend, with its scientists both in the lab and on the land, researching new products, services and solutions for farmers, enhanced by a growing range of international research partnerships dedicated to making sustainable agriculture a reality.
Their reach is global but their focus is on Africa, where crop yields are less than 25 per cent of what they could be. To close that yield gap, OCP has allocated four metric tonnes of its total production to Africa, over a quarter of its output, and invested some $5b in new production capacity in Morocco, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nigeria and Ghana.