Yara and Lantmännen have signed a commercial agreement to bring green fertilisers to market, with an 80-90% lower carbon footprint than current products.
The green fertilisers, produced using renewable energy, are 'crucial' for decarbonising the food chain and offering consumers more sustainable food choices, both organisations said on Monday.
Yara, a global fertiliser producer, and Lantmännen, a Sweden-based farming cooperative, began testing the commercial viability of the fertilisers in 2019.
The collaboration has now resulted in a commercial contract, which will be produced by Yara and marketed by Lantmännen in Sweden starting in 2023.
Instead of using fossil fuels such as natural gas to produce ammonia – the building block of mineral fertilisers – the new fertilisers will be produced with ammonia based on renewable energy produced in Europe, such as Norwegian hydropower.
The result will be fertilisers with an 80 to 90 percent lower carbon footprint, according to Yara and Lantmännen.
Svein Tore Holsether, CEO of Yara said: “Our partnership with Lantmännen to bring green fertilisers to market is crucial for decarbonizing the food value chain.
"We have to transform the food system to deliver on the Paris Agreement, and this will require collaboration across the entire food chain instead of working in silos.
"The Yara-Lantmännen partnership is a concrete example of how this can be done.”
For cooperative Lantmännen, using the green fertilisers will be an important step closer to reaching climate neutral farming in northern Europe.
Per Olof Nyman, CEO said: "With the green fertilisers from Yara in place we enable Swedish farmers to continue to be at the forefront, offering our customers sustainability performance according to global climate targets as well as bringing sustainable food to consumers.
"With this partnership, we can continue to meet an increased market demand for sustainable products.”
The fertilisers will be incorporated into Lantmännen’s cultivation program Climate & Nature, which aims to make it profitable for farmers to adopt more sustainable farming practices.
