Uralchem Group's humanitarian shipment of more than 34,000 tonnes of fertilizer for Nigeria has been loaded onto a ship in the port of Latvia and is on its way to the West African country, the company said in a statement.
The company noted that the shipment is being facilitated by the UN World Food Program, which chartered the dry cargo ship to transport the fertilizer as part of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's effort.
The shipment to Nigeria is the company's fifth humanitarian delivery of fertilizers to Africa, Uralchem added, stressing that it intends to transfer fertilizers to developing countries to help overcome the global food crisis.
Uralchem Group is committed to donating approximately 300,000 tonnes of mineral fertilizers to developing nations to alleviate the unprecedented global food crisis and prevent crop losses in countries that face the risk of famine," the statement said.
In this regard, Dmitry Konyaev, director of Uralchem, noted that Nigeria is facing significant problems with its agricultural production, which has put a large number of people, mostly in rural areas, at risk.
"As a company aiming to make sure that every person on this planet has access to food, we are grateful for the opportunity to help Nigerian farmers increase crop yields and mitigate food shortages," he remarked.
Konyaev added that fertilizers are "the key element in ensuring food security on both national and global levels," and that about half of the world's population depends on food produced with the help of fertilizers.
Last week, Russian Ambassador to Mali, Igor Gromyko revealed that Moscow offered Mali 50,000 tonnes of wheat and 20,000 tonnes of fertilizer in 2023.
While previous destinations on the continent were Malawi and Kenya, Uralchem announced, on December 11, that a humanitarian shipment of 23,000 tonnes of Russian fertilizers was sent from Europe to Zimbabwe.