Fertilizer producer K+S offers solutions in fighting the hunger around the world

KASSEL, Germany, 19-Jan-2016 — /EuropaWire/ — No human right is violated as frequently as the right to food. That almost 800 million people worldwide still do not have enough to eat is one of the greatest scandals of our time. The struggle against hunger is making progress but given the growth in the world’s population, climate change and other challenges, it must be waged even more efficiently in the future. K+S offers solutions in this regard and with its offering of numerous plant nutrients, makes a contribution to achieving higher yields from the limited agricultural land available worldwide.

In connection with the launch today of the 81st International Green Week in Berlin, many representatives of political, agricultural and development cooperation circles will stress once again that ensuring sufficient food for all people is one of the greatest challenges of our time. And rightly so: Combatting world hunger ranks very high on the global political agenda for humanitarian, social and economic reasons.

As a fertilizer producer, K+S sees itself as part of the solution to tackling this immense but undoubtedly surmountable challenge. This is because plant nutrients potash and magnesium which the commodities company extracts at its potash plants and processes into high-quality fertilizers make it possible, when applied in a balanced way, to achieve much higher yields and consequently, more efficient agricultural production. Most of the regions of the world in which hunger is yet to be eliminated possess substantial agricultural potential. However, there are many places where that potential still needs to be realized. In Africa, for example, agricultural productivity is still not even half of what it is in Western Europe despite the many millions of men and women who work in agriculture there.

In the light of this, K+S launched the “Growth for Uganda” project together with a partner, the Sasakawa Africa Association, in 2013. The main focus of the project is on the transfer of knowledge as smallholders in Africa often lack specialist knowledge on how to use available resources efficiently and to thus ensure that their families are provided with sufficient food. K+S is able to contribute over 100 years of experience in plant nutrition research and advice to the project. Knowledge is regularly passed on by means of providing training at the local level in accordance with the “train the trainer” principle. The aim is to train 50,000 smallholders within the first three years alone. That this is proving successful is plain to see: New cultivation techniques have led to a substantial increase in crop yields. On the one hand, there has been an improvement in ensuring the sufficient availability of food for personal needs and on the other hand, smallholders can sell their surpluses.

FUTURE FOOD FORUM 2016

To promote the exchange of ideas and strategies for combatting hunger and for ensuring that the world has an adequate supply of food over the long term, K+S will also be organizing a FUTURE FOOD FORUM in Berlin this year in the run-up to World Food Day so as to provide a platform for the most urgent questions concerning the future with respect to population growth and global nutrition. The objective: An active dialogue between central, national and international stakeholders drawn from politics, science and NGOs.

The next FUTURE FOOD FORUM will take place on October 13, 2016. Experts from a number of countries and various continents will discuss issues such as how the struggle against hunger can be waged more efficiently, how international development cooperation can be improved and what contribution can be made by local agriculture and the food industry with modern production methods and functioning distribution channels at the local level. More information at www.future-food-forum.de.

About K+S
K+S is an international resources company. We have been mining and processing mineral raw materials for more than 125 years. The products we produce from them are used worldwide in agriculture, food and road safety and are important elements in numerous industrial processes. Potash and salt are integral nutrients for the megatrend of a constantly growing and increasingly prosperous global population striving for a higher standard of living. This will result in increasing consumption of mineral resources. We serve the resulting growth in demand from production sites in Europe, North America and South America as well as through a global distribution network. K+S is the world’s largest salt producer and one of the top potash providers worldwide. With more than 14,000 employees, K+S achieved revenues in financial year 2014 of about € 3.8 billion and an EBIT of € 641 million. K+S is the commodities stock on the German DAX index. Learn more about K+S at www.k-plus-s.com.

Michael Wudonig, CFA
Spokesman
Phone: +49 561 9301 1262
michael.wudonig@k-plus-s.com

SOURCE: K+S AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT