The International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), Muscle Shoals, Ala., wants to set the record straight. Contrary to an article in The Times Daily, the local newspaper, there are no immediate plans for launching a fertilizer research effort that would develop more efficiency in nutrients and lower costs to farmers. “There is no R&D center presently in the works,” John Shields, interim marketing and development director, told Green Markets. He said the confusion was over an interview with Amitara Roy, president and CEO, in which Roy expressed his desire for the Shoals to become the core of research into finding affordable, environmentally friendly fertilizers.
Roy pointed out that IFDC works to help farmers in developing countries increase crop production and farm income, and that mission could be expanded to share the developments with farmers in the United States. He said more efficiency is needed in utilization of nitrogen and somewhat in phosphorus, also through development of fertilizers that would provide nutrients to the plants as they are needed and retain the remainder in the soil.
Shields conceded that IFDC should be getting back to some of its principle missions, which would include an expanded center in R&D. “There needs to be more public research and we have the wherewithal to do it,” he added. “But we need the money to do it.” He believes present efforts should be focused on generating more interest in this area.
The paper indicated that laboratory space could be leased for research from The Tennessee Valley Authority at the agency’s idled chemical engineering building next door to IFDC headquarters. Roy was quoted as saying it would cost $5 million to purchase equipment and refurbish the lab, with it costing $15-$20 million per year for five to six years to pay for the research. In addition, it quoted Roy as saying a new generation of fertilizers could be developed in as little as five years.
In June, IFDC announced several initiatives for developing and promoting better fertilizer use, including integrated soil fertility management to improve the profitability for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Henk Breman, an IFDC expert in environment and agronomy based in Rwanda, said the technology promotes both organic and inorganic sources of plant nutrients, including mineral fertilizers, crop residues, phosphate rock, and lime. IFDC also is promoting deep placement, or the insertion of large briquettes of urea fertilizer into the root zone of transplanted rice, as a technology to decrease fertilizer use. Roy said this method improved net returns significantly and reduced urea use by 50 percent, and has implications for other areas.