Australia's federal government has updated its biosecurity processes to allow fertilizer to reach farmers quicker as growers enter seeding for the winter crop, Australia's department of agriculture, fisheries and forestry (DAFF) said today.
These updates will speed up the border process including for non-traditional import origins, given that the country faces a urea shortage in the coming months, Australian agriculture minister Julie Collins said on 16 April.
The updates include biosecurity certification from an authorised inspector offshore, inspection of samples for cargoes from higher risk pathways, and simplified offshore entity registration and streamlined onshore compliance inspections. These will reduce costs and port clearance times, and lower administrative burdens, DAFF said.
Australian fertilizer suppliers have turned to unusual origin countries including Nigeria and Egypt for urea supply in recent weeks, because the strait of Hormuz remains closed to most traffic. These origins do not have the highest DAFF accreditation, resulting in higher costs and the risk of re-exporting from these origins because of the country's strict biosecurity laws.
Australia typically imports about 60pc of its urea via the strait of Hormuz, trade data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show. Without trade from that region farmers are facing tight supply as they begin sowing winter crops.
There is 248,000t of urea in transit to Australia via eight vessels set to arrive before the end of May, vessel tracking data from Kpler show.
