By CASSEY KAYULA –
RICE Works Global, a United Kingdom (UK) based company has expressed interest in investing over €400,000 in the construction of a bio fertiliser plant in Zambia.
The company which is working with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is expected to start construction once the Zambia Environment Management Agency (ZEMA) approves the project.
COMESA SME tool kit project co-coordinator Edwin Zulu said the fertiliser plant would be made up of purely organic matter and would help reduce the cost of farming inputs.
He was speaking in an interview in Lusaka recently.
Mr Zulu said once the plant was installed it would address the current challenges of high cost of fertiliser that the country was facing.
“Zambia is one of the countries with a high cost of fertiliser and the plant will bring a cheaper fertiliser, we had a meeting in Rwanda with Rice works global and the company is very much interested,” he said.
Mr Zulu said the plant would promote environmentally sustainable fertiliser in line with the new farming practices.
He said the bio fertiliser plant would help bring down the cost of fertiliser by more than 100 per cent saying that the fertiliser should be as cheap as K2, 500 per hectare as compared to the current K6, 000 per hectares.
“Fertilizer is a seasonal business and every time the market realised that there was not enough supply to meet the demand, the longer supply chain meant that the prices had to go a lot higher than they otherwise would,” Mr Zulu said.
Mr Zulu said bio fertilisers had the potential to increase the health and productivity of plant life.
He said that bio fertiliser would help to increase levels of major nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, while others would help fight off diseases and provide beneficial trace elements in the soil.
“If bio fertilisers are effective in promoting healthy soil and plant life, the overall environment is healthier, as air and water quality are inseparably linked to soil quality,” he said.