Our arable land has lost its fertility, so it is no longer productive as it used to be, without the use of agricultural inputs. Six years have passed, Burundian farmers are using FOMI fertilizers, which are made from the mixture of organic manure and chemical fertilizers.
These FOMI fertilizers have already demonstrated their quality by their ability to increase production, restore soil fertility and protect biodiversity as a whole, which is also useful for crops. What makes FOMI fertilizers special? What are their constituents, their values on production, on human health and on arable land much devastated by acidity on a large part of the Burundian soil?
The factory that manufactures Organo Minerals fertilizers FOMI has just spent 6 years making the fertilizers that farmers use to apply to the different crops. There is FOMI Imbura applied to all crops, FOMI BAGARA applied to tubers, FOMI TOTAHAZA applied to cereals. FOMI Imbura and Totahaza are also applied during weeding depending on the type of crop.
KABONEKA Salvator, University Professor and researcher in soil fertilization says that the way in which FOMI fertilizers are made, allows the land devastated by acidity to restore its fertility. Crops also receive the nutrients that help them grow well and produce well.
• Look at the soil structure, the organic part and the mineral part at the bottom. The foot in the middle, if you will, there are what you call the mixed horizons, which have the characteristics of the surface organic horizon and the depth mineral horizon. That’s the structure of the soil. So, in order to bring the soil back to the way it was before man fed on these nutrients and impoverished it, we have to bring in these nutrients that have been taken elsewhere. This is called the law of restitution, which is rarely respected. That’s a.
2.il also have to bring back to reconstitute, regenerate the horizon to organic, so do as God did, and how we do it, we bring the organic matter, the manure, we bring the mineral elements, we put them.
• Science tells us that in order for a plant to produce, beyond the carbon found in carbon dioxide, and the hydrogen and oxygen found in water, the plant must have access to 13 elements. There are standards. Today, 3 elements: DAP brings 2, supplemented by urea for nitrogen, to a list of the 13 elements that the plant needs. It’s a long way off… We are very far away. Beyond the effects that are not positive of fertilizers on the soil, and on the life of the soil.
3.Advanced: 2 additional elements at the FOMI level: calcium and magnesium. In response to the acidity problem, which practically excludes any availability of nutrients.
From 3 to 5.
So surprisingly, I have just learned, on the basis of the analyses that have been carried out in a European laboratory, particularly in Belgium, that finally FOMI fertilizers contain other elements that are called micro elements of which the plant does not need much, because they are a specific role, an enzymatic role of growth activator.
What are the elements that are in FOMI: There is molybdenum. By the way, molybdenum is the element that controls the biological fixation of nitrogen in legumes, soybeans, beans and all that. Molybdenum, sulfur, copper, zinc, as well as in parenthesis, zinc and copper are the most deficient elements in terms of recent microelements in Burundi.
In other words, advanced, from 3 elements yesterday, 5 elements today, and if the analyses are confirmed, from 5 elements to 9 in FOMI. I say it’s an interesting step forward that we absolutely have to follow and support. The ideal, 13 elements. It’s a process. For example, taking the case of FOMI, FOMI does not only bring N-P-K. Why should we consider it and compare it to DAP, urea and KCL which provide 2 elements or one element?
FOMI provide Calcium, magnesium, why can’t we consider these elements right! So, nutrient diversity is the goal because we know how many elements the plant needs. A single element is not enough.2 elements are not enough,3 elements are not enough, in any case they are less productive than 5 elements as we know them in FOMI formulations.
To properly treat the acidity of the soil, it is imperative to bring it back to its original state, by giving it Organo-Mineral fertilizers. Therefore, FOMI fertilizers are made in this way and this is what makes it unique when compared to conventional fertilizers also called chemical fertilizers. FOMI fertilizers have more nutrients due to the fertilizer they contain.
• Ideally, this DAP and urea should not be applied in the soil, without being combined with lime, calcium and magnesium to reduce the residual acidity associated with these fertilizers, and to avoid adding the evil to the evil by adding acidity with fertilizers to the acidity that is in the soil. I tell you calcium magnesium is the solution, put together is what FOMI does.
Some microorganisms that we don’t know about and don’t see are carbon. Carbon is found in organic matter. So, if you do a purely mineral N-P-K fertilization, year after year, the plant needs carbon, you don’t bring the carbon into these fertilizers, and the organism, needing this carbon…, you have to look for the carbon in the organic matter. He eats… it eats, the organic matter.
At the same time as the contribution of minerals, it eats until it finishes the organic matter and the carbon. And the organic matter that you know is porosity, this is the circulation of water, this is the circulation of air, this is friability, so if its microorganisms by feeding excessively on its minerals that you have brought by purely mineral fertilization, they have consumed all the carbon in the soil and you lose all the characteristics including: physical, chemical, biological…, you have a compact, impermeable soil, that’s the reality.
Accompany these fertilizers with organic matter for the reasons I have just mentioned, but also remembering that the soil is made of: organic and mineral. Copy nature please.
For the moment in Burundi, the soils are so leached, desaturated, that you have to raise the level of these different elements, at the same time as you apply organic matter until the day you are back to nature and you manage nature, you apply organic matter, that will be enough.
These fertilizers, which are the pride of farmers because of their exceptional ability to restore fertility, have been researched to achieve their cation. Researchers from the FOMI company in collaboration with those from ISABU and the University of Burundi have approved the nutrients contained in FOMI fertilizers, this is what you see on the IMBURA, TOTAHAZA or BAGARA bags.
• I would like to tell you that we are doing agronomic research in collaboration with the Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Burundi (ISABU), the various universities such as the University of Burundi and other private universities that are here in Burundi and abroad.
FOMI fertilizers contain a lot of mineral salts: for example, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. In addition to that, there are secondary mineral salts such as: calcium, magnesium, sulphur.
There are 4 trace elements already discovered. There is: zinc, boron, copper, and molybdenum. Since we use manure as a raw material, we have found that this manure also contains trace elements. It is for this reason that we have thought of checking the degree of trace elements that are found in our fertilizers.
We then sent samples of our fertilisers to specialised laboratories abroad, such as in Belgium, the result has been that our fertilizers contain trace elements in sufficient quantities.
An evaluation of FOMI fertilizers revealed that they contain a different level of nutrients called micronutrients contained in these fertilizers since 2019. Another aspect to be pleased about is that FOMI fertilizers are made by Burundians. This is an honor and an added value for our country, Burundi. The founder of the FOMI company has really shown that he understood the country’s project to develop the agricultural sector long before.
• NTIGACIKA Adrien, who was able to understand in the first place that in agricultural policy, the first thing to do is agricultural inputs, since farming without using fertilizers is a waste of time.
Very recently, I had gone to visit his factory to see the techniques he uses. We found really sufficient equipment, big machines with many pots, he explained to us that he imported this equipment abroad, because here in Burundi these machines did not exist. He told us that when he bought these machines, he bought spare parts, and it was the barundi themselves who did their assembly here in Burundi.
I think those who were with me that day, you saw that there are different machines that do this and that, that beat here and there, to make fertilizers. It’s very exciting. As you can see, this initiative should be encouraged and supported. If we can find other initiators and innovators,
If we can find other initiators and innovators, our country can develop in a very short time.
The President of the Republic said that Burundians, like the one who created the FOMI company, are to be supported because they contribute to the development of the country.
• In the past days, Burundians practiced all crops, without fertilizers. If they ever needed fertilizers, they used organic fertilizers. Even then, natural herbs were numerous.
We are delighted with a strong hand lent by Burundians in the agricultural sector, to the point of producing organo-mineral fertilizers, to reduce the acidity that was deteriorating our cultivable soil, which leads to production, good health of the population, respect for the environment, and farmers are supplied with organo-mineral fertilizers on time and at affordable prices, Farmers have found a market for the disposal of their organic manure.
Farmers who have applied FOMI fertilizers are satisfied and say that production has increased and the soil has steadily restored its fertility. Even the various BPEAE are satisfied with FOMI fertilizers and praise them.
• 1.The FOMI factory contributes a lot to the provision of organo mineral fertilizers. This production we see today, we are proud and we congratulate all those who have put their contribution including the FOMI factory that availables the organo mineral fertilizers.
• 2. In the past, there were no indicator grasses of soil fertility. For example, this herb is called icanda, it is a grass that grows on the fertile soil to say that these FOMI fertilizers, after their use, the soil grows herbs sign of fertility. The same is true for this urutezateza herb, this grass cannot grow on arid soil. Another sign of fertility: this soil that is becoming more and more permeable icukiro. It is thanks to these FOMI fertilizers that this soil becomes favorable to the growth of plants.
• 3. These fertilizers are composed of two parts: the organic part and the mineral part. So this combination makes these fertilizers very rich in mineral salts and increases agricultural production, the proof of which is that, on the part of farmers, the demand for supplies is increasing day by day:
• 4. The importance of using FOMI fertilizers especially on agricultural lime, things changed because there were grasses such as ishinge. Ishinge grows on arid soil. These grasses no longer exist in our field. They have been replaced by: icanda, ikurasuka, imibebe, all this shows that the acidity has disappeared.
• 5. The role of FOMI is very remarkable in agricultural production because, it is true that if a farmer cultivates without using these fertilizers, he does not harvest anything.
There is even a case where a maize plant reaches the reproductive stage without even reaching a metre in height. Otherwise, if the fertilizers have been applied, especially FOMI Imbura, which is the bottom fertilizer, respecting the application dosages prescribed by the agricultural technicians, the harvest must be satisfactory.
- With FOMI fertilizers, we see that the soil changes its shine, from red to black.
By comparing these two test fields, we can see very well that the harvests will not be the same, we will harvest more in the field at FOMI, than in these fields with conventional fertilizers.
• 7. FOMI fertilizers do not degrade the soil. That’s why we like it very much.
We have used conventional fertilizers alongside FOMI fertilizers because we would like to demonstrate the difference between these two types of fertilizers.
Next time we will not apply conventional fertilizers again, because we will have already shown the added value of FOMI fertilizers.
Here is for example these corns are good.
• 8. Really, we are satisfied, these FOMI fertilizers are very important. Right now, if we don’t find those fertilizers, it would become a big problem in terms of production. We congratulate FOMI because they have tried to do everything to find a way to boost production, there is an added value in relation to agricultural production from year to year.
• 9. FOMI fertilizers are very useful because, we see that if FOMI fertilizers have been used, the soil becomes permeable and resistant to drought even during the shortage of rains. You can have two fields in the same locality, but they are not resistant to drought in the same way. This is because the FOMI field is more resistant in a way that one can even think that it has been watered. FOMI fertilizers are very important.
• 10. Here we used DAP, KCL and classic urea, the floor is bare, on the other side, the floor has been restored.
Most Burundians have already understood that FOMI fertilizers contribute a lot to increasing production. Even foreigners are attracted to FOMI fertilizers and ask for the erection of a FOMI factory in their country. Let’s be proud of our own products. Let’s apply FOMI fertilizers in our fields.
God bless you, see you soon