Latin america

Latin America is a promising region where substantial potential exists for increased fertilizer use and crop production. Demand for P fertilizers in this region for the period 2000-2020 is projected to grow by 2 to 3 % per year. Latin America, as well as Asia and Africa will increase their shares in total demand and market for P fertilizers in the next 20-30 years. Total fertilizer consumption in Latin America is forecasted to increase gradually from 10.4 million tons in 2000 to 13.2 in 2010 and then to 16.2 million tons by 2020,. P2O5 consumption is projected to increase from 3.1 million tons in 2000 to 5.0 million tons in 2020.

The World Phosphate Institute (IMPHOS) has not yet conducted activities -research projects or workshops - in Latin America, except within the framework of two multi-regional projects. One was launched in 1975 to investigate "Phosphorus in tropical soils: assessing deficiency levels and phosphorus requirements", and its activities covered in Latin America Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia where collected soil samples were used in pot and laboratory experiments. The second was launched in 1995 in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to investigate "The use of nuclear and related techniques for evaluating the agronomic effectiveness of phosphates fertilizers, in particular, rock phosphates", a project that was conducted in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (namely in Brazil and Venezuela).

Brazil is by far away Latin America 's biggest country with about 160 million people and a land area ranking fifth in the world. Brazil is among the world's leading producers of grains and oilseeds: world's third-largest maize producer (after USA and China); it is world's second-largest soybean producer (after USA).
In South America, Argentina and Chile showed high agricultural production performance, mainly in livestock, fruit and vegetable production.

Overall, there are great agricultural potentials in Latin America that are being harnessed, and which need use of increased agricultural inputs in order to be fully exploited. IMPHOS endeavors to contribute to bringing the countries in this region to fully exploit their potentials by pursuing a sustainable and highly profitable agricultural production strategies. With this in view, the Institute is planning to organize by the year 2003 a Regional Workshop in this region, with Brazil as host country.
This workshop is designed to attract relevant policy- and decision-making bodies, extension services, farmers' cooperatives/ professional organizations, fertilizer industry institutions, international agricultural research centers, and national agricultural research systems.

A Tentative Programme for this workshop is presented in the section "Events & News".