Yara Suomi has announced the acquisition of Ecolan, a Finnish producer of recycled fertilisers as the company cements its commitment to play a bigger role in organic farming and in contributing to the circular economy.
Yara logo. Credit: Veja / Shutterstock
Credit: Veja / Shutterstock
Yara Finland is a subsidiary of Yara International, a Norwegian chemical company that was founded in 1905 to solve the emerging famine in Europe.
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It has established itself a unique position as the industry’s only global crop nutrition company. With around 17,000 employees and operations in over 60 countries, the group has a proven track record of strong returns.
The Finnish subsidiary makes fertilisers, industrial chemicals and environmental protection products in three production plants that employ 900 people. The company claims that its crop nutrition solutions and digital tools help improve nutrient management practices and land-use efficiency for all farming methods, including organic farming.
“By expanding our offerings into the growing organic farming segment in Europe, we can help improve nutrient use efficiency in this segment by capitalizing on our deep crop nutrition knowledge,” says Mónica Andrés, Executive Vice President for Yara Europe.
“Our core competence lies in managing nutrients in the most sustainable and efficient way, whether this is for organic farming or conventional farming. We want to be the leading partner for all farmers, regardless of which farming system they use,” she adds.
Ecolan, a Finnish front-runner in the circular economy, utilises industrial side streams to produce high-quality fertilisers for agriculture and forestry. As a result of several years of research and development, Yara brought a new organic fertiliser line with a high nitrogen content, which was produced by Ecolan, to the Finnish market in 2019.
“Starting from small-scale production, Ecolan has grown into one of Finland’s leading circular economy industrial companies. Through Yara’s ownership, Ecolan’s know-how can be utilised also internationally,” says Vesa Lehtomäki, Chairman of the Board of Korona Invest, Ecolan’s majority owner.
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Today many organic waste streams are not being reused or recycled. Recovering nutrients from waste streams and bringing them back into agricultural production helps contribute to a circular economy and reduces nutrient losses.
The circular economy has an important role to play in improving nutrient use efficiency, which is one of Yara’s core areas of expertise. Through our strategic partnerships with waste management and food companies, and by leveraging our crop nutrition knowledge, Yara is working to find optimal ways to recycle nutrients that would otherwise end up as waste and then process these to produce organic fertilisers.
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