5.3. Potential Markets and Competitors

Fertilizers are used in agriculture to replace the elements extracted from the soil in the form of food and other agricultural products¹⁰². Primary elements required to be replaced are the nutrients nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen are all available from air or water), thus fertilizers need to carry mostly these elements. The fertilizer must suit the soil composition and the crop’s needs; therefore different fertilizers are applied by agriculture. The application of fertilizer increases production of cropland¹⁰³.

Urea granules or prills carry typically 45-46% of nitrogen and are transported and stored in big bags and applied to farmland seasonally.

¹⁰² Fertilizer Manual, UNIDO, International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht NL, 1998
¹⁰³ Fertilizer Manual p 20