Idan Ofer (Flash 90 photo/ Moshe Shai)
One of the significant challenges in the fields of sustainability is to make use of existing (and mostly polluting) technologies while making them environmentally friendly, or at least close to it. ICL produces and markets fertilizers and is one of the companies that has to face this challenge which is not easy at all.
Today the company launched an interesting technology of biodegradable fertilizers that are mainly intended for farmers who grow crops in open areas with the intention of making more efficient use of these fertilizers with minimal environmental damage.
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ICL’s technology is actually a significant technological advance that should make agriculture sustainable and allow farmers to meet EU fertilizer standards for 2026
The biodegradable release technology is intended, as mentioned, for open field agriculture. This solution is made possible through a biodegradable coating, which will help farmers maximize the performance of agricultural crops while reducing the environmental impact, by reducing the loss of nutrients while increasing the nutrient use efficiency (NUE) up to 80%. The technology maintains and even increases crop yield while saving costs, helps reduce the number and amount of nitrogen applications, and provides a consistent and predictable release of nutrients.
ICL says that the eqo.x technology is the first solution offered on the market for supplying coated controlled release fertilizer (CRF) for urea, which degrades faster, and has been specially designed to meet the future European fertilizer standards that will come into effect in 2026. The new technology will be applied to ICL’s CRF products for agricultural crops, including the Agromaster and Agrocote brands, and will help reduce nutrient loss. This achievement is critical and significant for the European Farm to Fork strategy as well as for the EU Soil Strategy for 2030, which aim to reduce the loss of nutrients by at least 50% by 2030.
Elad Aharonson, President of the Innovative Solutions for Agriculture Division at ICL: “We are proud to present our most advanced CRF coating, eqo.x biodegradable release technology, which will also help control the release of nutrients on a daily basis – by meeting the specific needs of Any growth – and will also result in a higher efficiency of using nutrients.
“The innovative, greener technology will provide precise nutrition through a coating, which decomposes faster, and helps improve yield, reduce nutrient loss, and simplify fertilizer applications. Beyond the benefit to farmers, it is an environmental solution, since the coating significantly reduces the infiltration of nutrients into the soil and groundwater, compared to fertilizers ordinary”.
ICL estimates that the innovative coating will be available to farmers in Europe by 2023, and in order to meet the expected market demand, is investing $20 million in a new production line for the eqo.x release technology at the Heerlen facility in the Netherlands. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global controlled-release fertilizers market size was USD 2.3 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach USD 3.86 billion by 2026, representing a CAGR of 6.37% during the forecast period.
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