Fertiliser

Australia’s most trusted rural charity, Rural Aid, has helped Northern Rivers farmers turn rotting flood waste into a healthy by-product for soil improvement, through a partnership with Multikraft Probiotic Solutions. Multikraft’s MicroBalance product was last week sprayed by helicopter onto 33 farms in northern New South Wales.

Logan City Council has opened an innovative new facility that turns human waste into energy and fertiliser ... The facility, which is the first of its kind in Australia, blasts sewage with extremely high heat to turn it into a product called biochar. Biochar can be used for a variety of purposes including as a fertiliser for the agricultural industry. It also has potential applications in the building industry.

GRDC Agronomy Solutions Director Sean Mason ... says the use of pre-season soil testing results from within paddock zones together with test strips can fine-tune fertiliser recommendations and ensure growers are getting the most bang for their fertiliser buck.

"During COVID, supply chains almost ground to a complete halt and exposed Australia’s reliance on the import of key inputs including urea. Many Australians would be shocked to learn the nation imports 90% of its urea, the most commonly used fertiliser in agriculture. Without urea, crop production would fall 30-40%" : National Farmers Federation Chief Executive, Tony Mahar.

The Australian Government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) has committed $255 million for critical infrastructure supporting the Perdaman Urea Project in Western Australia. The $4.3 billion project located 20 kilometres north-west of Karratha will convert Australian gas into approximately two million tonnes of urea per year.

Strike Energy Limited has been granted Major Project Status for Project Haber, its $3 billion urea manufacturing facility in the Narngulu Industrial Area, near Geraldton, Western Australia. The project will produce up to 1.4 million tonnes per annum of urea from clean hydrogen and natural gas.

After an oversubscribed capital raise, Australia’s leading-edge envirotech company, Patriot Hydrogen, is working full steam towards installing the first-ever Patriot unit in mid-2022 at Kimberley Clean Energy’s Kilto Station project near Broome, Western Australia. The modular hydrogen production unit will form part of Kimberley Clean Energy’s fossil fuel substitution strategy, with plans to add a hydrogen system in the next stage.

Widespread global disruption to supply is set to see Australian farmers again move to lock in fertiliser and other inputs early for the season ahead, Rabobank says in a recently-released report. This is despite global fertiliser prices at near-decade highs and expected to remain elevated in the short to medium term.

A new multidisciplinary Australian Research Council Research Hub for Smart Fertilisers at the University of Melbourne will develop a new class of fertilisers and inhibitors for Australian farmers.  

Simplot and its potato growers continue to work in strong partnership, and the new pricing agreement reflects an understanding of the issues currently being faced by the industry.

Plentiful supply of fertiliser supply along a stable currency outlook spells further good news for growers in the year ahead, according to analysts at...