The end of winter each year is always a good time to reflect on the state of the fertilizer industry. This year was no exception with the usual flurry of fourth-quarter and full-year results for 2019 emerging mid-February. Less of a flurry, actually, more of an avalanche.
Charlotte Hebebrand, director general of the International Fertilizer Association (IFA), is to step down at the beginning of May, after more than seven years in the role.
With more than 15 million hectares of land watered by drip irrigation globally, the technology’s agricultural potential remains enormous. Fertigation – the ability to manage and regulate both water and plant nutrients – is a key advantage helping drive worldwide growth.
Rice is one of the world’s most popular food staples, providing around one-fifth of the total global calorific value of human diets. Cultivation and consumption is particularly prevalent in Asian countries. We look at the nutrient needs of this widely-grown cereal.
A complete listing of all articles and news items that appeared in Nitrogen+Syngas magazine during 2019.
A complete listing of all articles and news items that appeared in Sulphur magazine during 2019.
A complete listing of all articles and news items that appeared in Fertilizer International during 2019.
The Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) has announced the election of Angela Booth as its new Vice Chairman. AIC says that Angela brings many years of broad experience in the industry, including several years as Chair of the AIC Feed Executive Committee, a member of the AIC Board, and several roles on industry executives and committees. She was previously the AB Agri Director of Feed Safety. In her career, Angela has had widespread involvement, including feed safety, operations, quality, nutrition, purchasing, legislation and sustainability.
At the time of writing this editorial, the World Economic Forum was having its usual annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos. Prior to this year’s meeting, as usual the WEF had produced its annual Global Risks Report to serve as a talking point for the meeting. While some of the risks were as usual political and economic, from proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the “retreat from multilateralism” to growing inequalities of wealth in the developed world and “domestic political polarisation”, for the first time in the organisation’s history, the top five global risks in the report ranked by likeliness – which looks at potential global pitfalls over the next 10 years – were environmental. Perhaps with the pictures of Australia’s bush fire season fresh in their minds, the 750 experts ranked extreme weather events as the most likely, but climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainability in agriculture all ranked highly.
EuroChem Group has announced the appointment of Samir Brikho as chairman of the company’s board of directors. Brikho has served on the board since 2018. He has also held senior management positions at Asea and ABB Power Generation between 1983 and 2000, before moving to Alstom, where he served as Chief International Operations Officer and Senior Vice-President, and CEO of Alstom Kraftwerke in Germany. In 2003, he became CEO of ABB Lummus Global and in 2005 he was appointed to the Group Executive Committee of ABB Ltd, and served as Head of the Power Systems Division at ABB Group. From 2006 to 2016 he was CEO of Amec Foster Wheeler. In 2009 and 2016 Brikho was chair of the World Economic Forum’s Engineering and Construction Board.