Canada can play a major role in addressing growing food insecurity, Nutrien CEO says

TORONTO –

Canada is poised to play an enormous function in world meals manufacturing as local weather change makes farming harder and the world’s meals provide chain is rendered fragile by political and financial uncertainty, mentioned Nutrien CEO Ken Seitz.

Seitz made the remarks in Toronto at an occasion hosted by the Economic Club of Canada.

He mentioned local weather change is redrawing the map of worldwide meals manufacturing and Canada has a chance to be a key participant in addressing meals insecurity.

The world faces a double-barrelled downside, mentioned Seitz: “To feed a rapidly growing world, we’ll need to produce more food and we’ll need to do it sustainably.”

Nutrien is the world’s third-largest producer of nitrogen and the most important producer of potash, two key substances in industrial fertilizer.

The Saskatoon-based potash and fertilizer firm has six potash mines in Saskatchewan with greater than 20 million tonnes of capability, in addition to two massive phosphate mines within the U.S.

In Canada and the world over, local weather change is making farming, already an unpredictable business, much more risky, Seitz mentioned.

“Here at home in Canada, growers are experiencing wetter springs, hotter and drier summers, all of which constrains our irrigation and water and all those resources that we need to manage,” he mentioned.

Seitz mentioned farmers want help within the type of incentives to allow them to undertake expertise and new practices with a view to farm extra sustainably. Risk is a significant barrier for farmers, he mentioned, who’re coping with rising uncertainty and managing slim margins.

He mentioned in an interview after the occasion that the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, to which the Canadian authorities has been below strain to reply, is an effective instance of the form of incentives that may drive funding. Nutrien is constructing a clear ammonia plant in Louisiana, and Seitz mentioned the incentives supplied by the Act helped give the corporate confidence to speculate there.

“It’s difficult to respond to something as powerful as the Inflation Reduction Act, but that’s where probably the work needs to be done,” mentioned Seitz, calling the federal authorities’s newest finances “a start.”

In his speech, Seitz mentioned he believes carbon seize is a key a part of the local weather answer.

In 2021, Nutrien started piloting a brand new undertaking aimed toward serving to farmers cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions, lure and retailer carbon, and measure enhancements in addition to facilitating the acquisition and sale of carbon credit.

The pilot is presently engaged on 750,000 acres throughout North America, Seitz mentioned Wednesday.

In 2024, Nutrien will increase this system to Australia and Brazil, Seitz mentioned after the speech.

Nutrien additionally has its personal emissions objectives with explicit emphasis on its nitrogen portfolio, mentioned Seitz, with about $50 million in investments thus far in that space. He mentioned the corporate is presently on observe to cut back its greenhouse gasoline emissions in nitrogen manufacturing by a million tonnes by the top of this 12 months.

The previous 12 months has been a tumultuous one for the agriculture business, and Nutrien has not been proof against the ups and downs.

Demand elevated for Nutrien’s potash earlier in 2022 because of the struggle in Ukraine. Because of that enhance, in March the corporate mentioned it might ramp up manufacturing to satisfy the demand, with most of that further quantity anticipated to be produced within the second half of the 12 months.

That ramp-up would imply extra capital spending and extra hiring at Nutrien’s Saskatchewan potash mines, the corporate mentioned in May. However, as Nutrien noticed gross sales stoop within the latter half of its monetary 12 months, in February it introduced it might delay rising manufacturing.

Despite this, Nutrien’s earnings in 2022 doubled, which the corporate attributed primarily to larger promoting costs ensuing from world provide uncertainties in addition to file retail efficiency.

And its manufacturing ramp-up, whereas pushed again, was removed from scrapped. The firm mentioned whereas it had beforehand deliberate to extend annual potash manufacturing to 18 million tonnes by 2025, it might attain that milestone by 2026 as an alternative.

Seitz mentioned the promised hiring at Nutrien’s Saskatchewan mines is being paced together with the opposite incremental adjustments throughout its provide chain that over time add manufacturing capability.

“So we’re carrying on expanding that production. But we have the ability to pace it as we watch the market.”

Nutrien was created in 2018 because of a merger between PotashCorp of Saskatchewan and Calgary-based Agrium Inc.

— With information from Amanda Stephenson

This report by The Canadian Press was first printed April 5, 2023.