MOROCCO- Morocco’s fertilizer and phosphate producer OCP Group has launched “Next Seed,” a new innovative platform seeking to strengthen the group’s collaboration with innovative actors in Morocco, Africa, and beyond.

The Next Seeds initiative aims to tackle challenges covering different fields, including agriculture, sustainable development, supply chain, among others.

The fertilizer group called on all operators in the field of innovation, including sponsors, research centers, and start-ups to “jointly meet technological challenges, optimize the group’s operational excellence, and encourage the development of new innovative business and services.”

Through the Next Seeds initiative, OCP aims to facilitate the implementation of innovative solutions within the group’s businesses.

It also aims to support the development of innovative communities at national and regional levels.

As part of the new launch, OCP has invited innovative players to apply for participation in the challenges launched by the group’s various support programs.

The selected applicants will benefit from access to experiment their innovative ideas, as well as mentoring from experts of the OCP Group and its partners.

The first challenge of the innovation contest, dubbed “Factory of the future by OCP,” will be based on four major topics, including “Safe Operations, Smart Operations, Supply-Chain, and Sustainability.”

In recent years, OCP has intensified initiatives seeking to ensure dialogue and expertise sharing to assist operators in fertilizer and agriculture fields.

Al Moutmir program, one of OCP’s recently launched initiatives, aims to improve the agricultural value chain in Morocco and in the African continent.

OCP has also constantly reiterated its commitment to supporting innovative players through various initiatives, including support programs like UFounders, UM6P Ventures, UM6P Innovation & Entrepreneurship Lab, Impulse, and AgTech Garage, as well as the industrial research center “Innovation Lab Operations” (ILO) launched by UM6P.

Recently, the fertilizer group partnered with ICL Specialty Fertilizer to promote sustainable development and the fight against climate change.

Under the agreement, the parties will offer funding to support sustainability programs and research at Morocco’s Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) and Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).

The research will be centred around food security, ecological restoration, smart agriculture, water, climate change, remote sensing, renewable energies, venture capital, among others.

The partnership also seeks to allow scientific and technical experts from UM6P and BGU to collaborate on sustainability initiatives and to build an agenda of different events, including seminars, symposia, and workshops.

The OCP group will provide an initial funding of US$300,000 to UM6P, while the ICL Group will provide a similar amount to BGU.

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