Short – Term Prospects For Agricultural Situation and .pptVIP

Training on Fertilizer Demand ForecastingPatrick Heffer, IFA19 April 2013Moscow, Russia What Is IFA? IFA in Brief Non-governmental organization representing the world fertilizer industry About 540 members in 85 countries( including Uralkali and many other Russian fertilizer producers) Based in Paris Organized around three standing committees: Technical Production and International Trade Agriculture Main activities: market analysis, issue management/ advocacy, conference organization IFA Agriculture Committee   Four objectives: Address issues facing fertilizerdemand Promote the efficient, balancedand responsible use of fertilizers Improve the public image of fertilizers Develop reliable and authoritative fertilizer demand forecasts Reports on demand forecasts twice a year Annual Conference (May/June)medium-term (5-year) forecasts Enlarged Council Meeting (Nov/Dec)short-term (1-year) forecasts Improving the forecasts Develop network of correspondents Guidelines for a crop-based approach Regional training programmes IFA Agriculture Committee    Develop reliable and authoritative fertilizer demand forecasts   IFA’s Fertilizer Demand Forecasts   Current strategy Rely on information provided by a network of correspondents in ~50 countries Heterogeneous inputsessentially due to different methodologies used depending on the countries Trend forecasts Government objectives Recommended application rates Econometric model (e.g. India, Brazil) Crop-based / expert-based model (e.g. EU, USA) Methodology and Information Used by IFA   Correspondents are not enough Use additional sources of info (reports, articles…) on: Economic context, weather, policy factors Global agricultural situation Check consistency between national forecasts and the global scenario Forecasts provided by the correspondents are revised in more than half of the countries !They are almost always revised down.  And checks are needed Fertilizer demand forecasts are cross-checked with forecas