The Vivescia cooperative, located in north-west France, promotes sustainable agriculture that respects the environment and biodiversity.
- Grupo Fertiberia's Impact Zero is the first line of plant nutrition products in the world free of carbon emissions.
The French cereal cooperative Vivescia has sealed an alliance with Grupo Fertiberia, one of the European leaders in the design, production and distribution of plant nutrition solutions, to incorporate into its crops fertilisers from the 'Impact Zero' line, the first products in the world to be made from green hydrogen and, therefore, without CO2 emissions. This agreement is part of the commitment to innovation that the cooperative, which brings together producers from north-west France, has been promoting for the past three years to develop sustainable agriculture that respects the environment and biodiversity.
Specifically, Vivescia will be experimenting with an area of 200 hectares where the Grupo Fertiberia's ‘Impact Zero' products will be applied, a project that will be extended over the coming cereal seasons. Vivescia has undertaken numerous projects in the field of nitrogen fertilisation, with the aim of reducing the carbon footprint of its crops, and also promotes actions to raise awareness of the importance of sustainability in the economy. To date, more than 1,500 farmers integrated in the cooperative have developed projects on their farms to reduce their emissions.
Grupo Fertiberia is the ideal partner to meet this challenge. It is the first company in the plant nutrition sector in the world to have committed to reducing its net emissions to zero by 2035. The key to achieving this goal lies in the production of fertilisers using solar energy, a step that has already been taken at its industrial centre in Puertollano (Spain), to be followed by the rest of the European plants. Green fertiliser has the same characteristics as conventional fertiliser, but is free of CO2 emissions because it replaces natural gas with green hydrogen in the manufacturing process.
Fertiberia's Impact Zero line also adds a series of innovations designed at Grupo Fertiberia's Agri-environmental Technologies Centre (CTA), where it uses digital tools and Big Data to analyse soil composition to provide fertilisers with maximum agronomic and environmental efficiency. From there, the alliance with farmers for their more efficient application is essential to decarbonise the primary sector, which in turn will enable all links in the food chain to reduce their emissions.
According to Savine Oustrain, Director of Research and Agronomy at Vivescia Coopérative, "it is necessary to boost decarbonisation in the field through the use of low-carbon fertilisers, as opposed to conventional synthetic products produced from natural gas."
In turn, Bernard Boulanger, commercial director of Fertiberia Tech & Specialities at Fertiberia France, a subsidiary of Grupo Fertiberia, stressed that the combined effect of fertilisers produced with green hydrogen and C-PRO technology makes 'Impact Zero' the most environmentally friendly fertiliser solution on the market and a technological breakthrough that the sector needs. “Our C-PRO technology has the advantage of reducing nitrous oxide emissions, but also optimises the use of applied fertiliser units and reduces nitrate leaching”, he stresses.
