Yara, Lantmannen to bring green fertilizers to market

Norwegian fertilizer giant Yara and major agricultural co-operative Lantmannen have signed a commercial agreement to bring fossil-free, nitrate-based fertilizers to the market next year.

Yara will produce the fertilizers, which will be marketed by Lantmannen in its native Sweden.

The fertilizers will be produced from ammonia that is created through renewable energy, such as hydropower, rather than from natural gas, the companies said.

Yara has projects in place for the production of green ammonia in Australia, the Netherlands and its home country of Norway.

A pilot scheme at the project in Norway will be responsible for the ammonia to be used in the first batches of the fossil-free fertilizers for the Swedish market.

AN and CAN will be offered, as well as nitrate-based complex fertilizers.

The new fertilizers' carbon footprint will be 80-90pc lower than that of equivalent products that are currently produced by Yara, it said.

Eventually, conventional fertilizers will be "completely replaced" by greener alternatives, Yara told Argus.

"We foresee that the whole industry will eventually be converted into low-carbon products, including green fertilizers, and we are working on converting more of our production plants to produce green ammonia using renewable energy," the company said.

"Although the initial volumes of green fertilizers to be delivered will be limited, we expect volumes will increase in the future until conventional fertilizers are completely replaced by greener and other climate-smart solutions.

"Lantmannen is the first customer for Yara's green fertilizers. We hope to partner with other customers as we scale up our green fertilizer business," the producer said.

The partnership with Lantmannen is "crucial" for decarbonising the food value chain, Yara president and chief executive Svein Tore Holsether added.

That value chain would include fossil-free fuels and transport, as well as precision farming.

The Yara partnership will allow Lantmannen to "continue to meet an increased market demand for sustainable products", the co-operative's president and chief executive Per Olof Nyman said.

Under its "Climate & Nature" programme, Lantmannen has reduced the climate footprint from wheat cultivation by up to 30pc since 2015, it said. With green fertilizers included in the programme, it expects the climate impact to be reduced by a further 20 percentage points.

Yara and Lantmannen are also collaborating on other projects, including crop-nutrition solutions and digital farming, they said.

By David Maher