The Cherifien Office of Phosphates (OCP) launched the first edition of the OCP School LAB Cacao campaign in Soubré, Côte d’Ivoire this Saturday as an initiative to improve agricultural productivity through a fertilization method adapted to local soils.

The Moroccan group OCP is in prospecting mode in the Ivorian “cocoa loop”, the country’s cocoa production area. Its Ivorian subsidiary, OCP CI, has just launched “OCP School Lab Cacao”, a tool which diagnoses soil fertility and provides metrics for optimal fertilization.

The ceremony was held at the regional delegation of the Cocoa Coffee Council and was attended by the NAWA region prefect, Alliali Kouadio, representatives of the Ivorian National Center of Agronomic Research (CNRA), the Ivorian National Agency for Rural Development Support (ANADER) and many producers in the region.

With this project, the OCP Group seeks to actively contribute to the agricultural development of Africa. According to Benzekri Mohamed, vice president of OCP West Africa, the group the group is a global player in the extraction, recovery and marketing of phosphate and its products, including phosphate fertilizers.

OCP School Lab Cacao will be conducted within a mobile and multicultural farm caravan. Benzekri explained that the project will be deployed in the south-west, west-central and western regions of the Ivory Coast, which are the major centers for the use of fertilizers in cocoa.

1,200 farmers will receive advice on the rational use of fertilizers after a free analysis of their farms, and 5,000 farmers will be trained on good agricultural practices in terms of soil fertilization.

According to the Ivorian Press Agency (AIP), representatives of CNRA, ANADER and the Coffee-Cocoa Board welcomed the efforts made towards the sustainability and productivity of cocoa. For them, this campaign is crucial to educate farmers on how to use fertilizers with successful results.

Source :Morocco World News