Page 22 - Mosaic Sustainability Report 2012

The Mosaic Company, 2012 Sustainability Report
to a 30 percent reduction in levels of chronic
malnutrition and a 50 percent reduction in the
propor tion of children under two years old who
are underweight.
Mosaic is also par tnering with Dr. Pedro Sanchez
and his team at the Ear th Institute at Columbia
Universit y on a series of test plots across Africa
to pinpoint nutrient recommendations that will
take the agriculture program at the Millennium
Villages to the next level.
Africa
Africa is a net impor ter of food today and will
experience the greatest population increase
of any continent over the next four decades.
Today, food shor tages af fect 30 percent of
the population, and the land has been largely
stripped of nutrients due to poor management
and inadequate fer tilization. Yet agriculture has
the potential to be one of Africa’s brightest
hopes for economic development. Over the
past four years, Mosaic has impacted the lives
of more than 250,000 people in eight African
countries by donating over 2,500 tonnes of
fer tilizer each year, along with the associated
transpor tation and logistics to the Millennium
Villages Project, one of the most ambitious
development projects ever under taken.
The logistics associated with transpor ting
fer tilizer to remote par ts of Africa is challenging.
Mosaic has no formal business presence on the
continent, and the lack of deep water por ts and
bagging and blending facilities means we must
diver t from our standard business model of
shipping in bulk. Bagging is completed in Florida
or India, and more than 100,000 bags are
shipped in containers to the village sites.
The impact of improved seeds and fer tilizers
paired with farmer training in agronomic
techniques is remarkable. Millennium Promise
repor ts that across the villages, yields of
maize have at least doubled and in some sites
more than quadrupled. This has contributed
Food
22