Costa Maya, Q.R. — Nearly 400 farmers in the south of Quintana Roo are utilizing the state’s unwanted sargassum turned fertilizer. Mexico company Dinaco says around 400 corn farmers are using the biostimulant (biologically derived fertilizer) made from collected sargassum.
Héctor Romero, Co-Founder of Dianco México, a concessionary company that works with macroalgae, explained that the fertilizer, which is delivered to farmers by the Ministry of Agricultural, Rural and Fisheries Development (Sedarpe), has more balanced properties than others being distributed globally.
“We have comparisons of performance, of efficiencies,” he said. By removing the salt and other elements, the action of fertilizers is potentiated and nourishes the soil, improving the harvest.
“We remove sand, salts, heavy metals from the sargassum and extract the main micronutrients and from there we have the success of this product because we are left with the best of the sea, so to speak.”
He said that this product had already been delivered to the Union of Cane Growers of Quintana Roo producing “excellent results” in their crops. The state government has acquired the product to support corn producers in the municipality of Othón P. Blanco as part of the self-consumption support program.
“It makes us proud because they are supporting us with the product that they have already verified to be a verifiable success, even recommended by the state’s sugarcane growers and chili producers themselves.”
Héctor Romero said that the delivery of this biostimulant is the product of work that began seven years ago.
The first step was to agree to obtain the sargassum collected in the municipalities of Benito Juárez (Cancun), Puerto Morelos and Solidaridad (Playa del Carmen) and later, the development of the product that farmers are using now.
Due to its properties, Romero says sargassum can also be used to improve substrate-type soils and is also used to extract alchemical acid and as a supplement to livestock feed. “This means that the sargassum is used 100 percent,” he said.
