OCP Group, one of the world’s largest custodians and suppliers of phosphate-based fertilizers and associated products on Tuesday announced a partnership for an initial carbon farming and certification project across Matto Grosso – the leading producer of livestock and grains in Brazil, alongside the farmers’ cooperative Bioline by Invivo, and agtech company, Agrorobótica. The selected farmer is an early adopter of innovative technologies. At present, the project would be covering areas of cotton, soybean, and corn, which are representative of Brazilian agriculture.
The project offshoots from a shared belief that soil health management is vital to developing the environment, attaining food security, and working towards global net zero ambitions. This is now the beginning of a larger partnership between OCP Group, Bioline, and Agrorobótica.
The partnership would promote regenerative farming practices to improve yield and soil quality through individualized digital solutions that are tailor-made to the region and the crop. For attaining this, the project will utilize Agrorobótica’s AI-led soil analysis tool – Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) – to assess, report, and validate carbon content and sequestration potential. LIBS is an analytical method that utilizes a high-focused laser to create micro plasma on the surface of the soil sample, to ascertain its rudimentary composition without producing any harmful chemical residues.
LIBS creates insights that enable a farmer to adopt the regenerative systems essential for sustainable agriculture. These systems enhance the soil’s capacity to sequester carbon and improve soil health and fertility, which in turn reduces carbon emissions, strengthens food security, and helps to enhance revenues for farmers.
The carbon credits created from the project offer a valuable source of income for the farmer and OCP Group will put the carbon credits that it obtains from this partnership towards its individual objectives of achieving Zero carbon emissions by 2040.
The partnership is OCP Group’s first phase into carbon agriculture, reflecting its strategy to take the lead in a sustainable agriculture transformation and promote innovative smart practices to improve harvests and soil quality.
Hanane Mourchid, Chief Sustainability Officer of OCP Group, said: OCP Group promotes regenerative agriculture practices in Brazil, Africa, and many areas across the globe by supporting farmers through training, deploying the 4R approach, and fostering innovation.
The project is a concrete way to unlock the potential of agriculture as a natural carbon sink that will help achieve the Paris Agreement objectives, Mourchid added.
Laurent Martel, Bioline by InVivo CEO, said that this project demonstrates Bioline by InVivo’s commitment to accelerate agricultural solutions for the environment, by diversifying farmers’ revenues.
Agriculture can regenerate natural capital, agriculture is a solution to the climate crunch, and farmers must be compensated for their regenerating actions.
‘‘We are launching a French Carbon Farming project: Carbone&Co, with French cooperatives, and created CarbonExtract, a digital monitoring, reporting, and verification digital tool for carbon farming projects,’’ Martel said.
Carbon farming is a nascent model that needs to be assessed on different experimental grounds, alongside other tools to finance the transition, and a global approach makes a lot of sense to identify the best approaches. Bioline expects a great deal from its partnership with OCP through this pilot which will feed its knowledge-building to discover, create and accelerate the solutions that will help farmers regenerate the ecosystem and diversify their income.
Fábio Angelis, Founder & CEO of Agrorobótica said that the purpose of Agrorobótica is to contribute to food security and the mitigation of climate change in the sphere.
About OCP Group
OCP Group plays a significant role in feeding a growing global population by providing essential elements for plant growth and soil fertility. With a span of knowledge and revenues achieving US$ 9.4 billion in 2021, OCP is a leader in plant nutrition and the planet’s leading producer of phosphate-based fertilizers. Headquartered in Morocco and exhibiting on five continents, OCP works in close collaboration with over 350 businesses across the globe.
Closer to the home environment, OCP Group is dedicated to accelerating Africa’s ecological and social development and executing sustainable and flourishing cultivation through uninterrupted innovation. The Group is resolutely assured that leadership and profitability are tantamount to social responsibility and sustainable development. Its strategic vision is entrenched in the gathering of these two dimensions.
About Bioline by InVivo
Bioline Group, which is firmly implicated in the Third Way of Agriculture, is the InVivo group’s agriculture holding group. With businesses covering the total agricultural production chain, the company brings together a distinctive coalition of 360° expertise, organized into three business lines:
- Bioline Seeds
- Bioline Crop Care
- Bioline Solutions
About Agrorobotica
Agrorobótica is a Green FinTech start-up that formed the AI platform AGLIBS, the same technology utilized by NASA in its robots to delve into the soils of Planet Mars. The platform supports farmers to solve major challenges on Planet Earth such as climate change mitigation and food security, creating enhanced productivity and agricultural sustainability as value creation, with carbon monetization and added value in products.
About Sementes Tropical
Sementes Tropical is an agricultural firm, founded in 1985. It had its foundations in Serra da Petrovina, with the farming of soybeans and the production of soybean seeds. At present, the company is a reference in the quality of soybean and cotton seeds at a national level and produces agricultural commodities such as soybeans, cotton, corn, and livestock.