Nakuru fertiliser plant opens April
What you need to know:
- Kenya is set to have its first fertiliser manufacturing plant with the opening of Sh3billion Fertiplant East Africa Ltd in Nakuru next month.
- Fertiplant, which is popularly known as Mea Limited, will be the first in Sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa and is meant to manufacture two million bags of the artificial manure annually.
- The NPK compound granulation plant with an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes will start conducting trial runs later this month with full operation slated for April.
Kenya is set to have its first fertiliser manufacturing plant with the opening of Sh3billion Fertiplant East Africa Ltd in Nakuru next month.
Fertiplant, which is popularly known as Mea Limited, will be the first in Sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa and is meant to manufacture two million bags of the artificial manure annually.
The NPK compound granulation plant with an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes will start conducting trial runs later this month with full operation slated for April.
The firm had earlier said it was planning to open the plant in December 2020.
Construction of the plant started in 2015 and is funded by Oikocredit and NCBA #ticker:NCBA.
“With this production capacity we are able to serve over one million farmers with tailor- made basal and top dressing fertilisers,” said Titus Gitau, an executive director at Fertiplant.
The plant will be importing raw material for the manufacturing of the product where it will produce specialty fertilisers for tea, coffee, potatoes, maize and sugar cane tailored for different regions and soils with an export capacity to also supply Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi markets.
Mr Gitau said the ability to tailor-make fertilisers represents the changing face of Kenyan agriculture sector as it introduces proven sciences behind soil testing and use of recommended fertiliser that have shown remarkable results when applied globally.
“Over the years, the challenge to farmers has always been cost of inputs in the country but with Fertiplant we want to change the conversation for farmers to look at the value of output,” he said.
Kenya has over the years been grappling with a serious problem of declining soil fertility resulting from high usage of acidic fertiliser.
The firm says that it will issue agrovets with agronomy certifications that will help reduce incidences of wrong input usage and help absorb the gap created by shortage of agronomists in the country.
Kenya’s annual fertiliser consumption stands at 500,000 tonnes per annum that has always been imported as finished, ready-to-apply product.