ICL invests BRL 100 million in specialty and biological fertilizers

The Israeli company ICL announced a new cycle of investments in Brazil to increase by 20% the production capacity of its fertilizers with controlled release technology from the Polyblen line.

The project is expected to invest BRL100 million in a new production unit, which should start operating by 2025.

″In the medium term, ICL is planning to double Polyblen's production capacity,″ CEO Gustavo Vasques informed.

According to him, with the growth in demand, ICL is anticipating and planning to increase its production capacity by 2024 for another product, Sulfurgran.

The value of the investment is still under analysis, but it should be one of the largest for ICL in Brazil in the coming years.

Throughout 2022, the company invested BRL70 million, doubling the amount invested in 2021 in its operations in Brazil, with expansion projects and integration of agribusiness.

At the unit in the city of Suzano, BRL20 million was invested in implementing a new installation for reaction and drying via Spray Dryer, a machine used in industry to transform liquids containing solids into solution, suspension, or emulsion.

″This will enable a significant increase in our production capacity for water-soluble fertilizers. This investment will allow ICL to continue meeting the growing demand for foliar fertilizers over the next five years,″ Vasques explained.

According to him, this new plant has state-of-the-art technology with an integrated control and supervision system.

″We want to get ahead of what could be a problem in the future. That is, with the growing demand for foliar fertilizers, being increasingly prepared to meet it. With this investment, we have the potential for the next five years to be able to support all the demand,″ he added.

In 2022, ICL brought three launches for the 2022/2023 harvest, the first being Phusion Poly, a phosphate fertilizer for soil that, in a single granule, contains nine nutrients: phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sulfur, magnesium, boron, zinc, copper and manganese.

Another novelty was Keep Green, a biofertilizer aimed at growing coffee that can an increase up to five bags per hectare.

The third launch was Kelmax Dry, a new technology developed and patented required by the company, which brings to the market a new way of applying nutrients and hormone precursors exclusively for use in industrial seed treatment.

The products were developed in the company's technological innovation centers accredited by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAPA) as research institutions in the country.

″Having two spaces accredited as research centers allows for even more agility in the development of unique technologies and their launch on the market, thus contributing to the increase in the production of quality food,″ Vasques elaborated.

Currently, around 40% of ICL's revenue comes from products launched less than five years ago.

His research has been developed in the following areas: nutrient use efficiency, stress mitigation, soil fertility, and digital agriculture.

(Editing by Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages)