Our Approach
The Zinc Nutrient Initiative (ZNI) seeks to address the critical and linked issue of zinc deficiency in soils, crops and humans with the long-term and sustainable solution of zinc-fortified fertilizers to improve crop yield and nutrition, ultimately improving food security and human health.
The ZNI approach is designed to establish activities and best practices in the target countries that will ultimately be market-driven and therefore sustainable in the long term. Practices that are successful will be replicated and expanded globally.
How We Work
The Zinc Nutrient Initiative is not a research initiative – the science is well understood and accepted. Instead, we are a scale-up initiative with the goals of increasing crops yields and crop nutritional status globally through programs, workshops, partnerships, and training.
Crop and Demonstration Trials
Highlighting the benefits of zinc.
Although the benefits of zinc fertilizer use are well understood, there is sometimes a need to conduct in-country crop trials to confirm the results in the local field conditions. This is often a requirement to develop a country specific zinc fertilizer recommendation.
National and regional workshops
Building regional awareness with key stakeholders.
We host workshops to join academia, industry, government personnel and NGOs to learn about and discuss zinc deficiency and zinc fertilization. ZNI holds conferences in the target countries, and participates and speaks at numerous non-ZNI conferences as well.
Training courses
covering all aspects of zinc in agriculture.
Education is key to successfully scaling up the use of zinc fertilizer. ZNI has developed a Zinc Fertilizer Training Program which provides a comprehensive and detailed overview of zinc deficiency in crops and humans, and also instruction on proper zinc fertilization to combat zinc deficiency, save lives, and increase farmer profitability.
Communication materials
Development of distribution of brochures, fact sheets, training manuals, and videos.
ZNI has created printed and online communication materials to distribute to key stakeholders. These materials are translated into various languages to serve the countries in which they are being used. We’ve also produced several videos to explain why global zinc deficiency needs to be addressed, and how zinc fertilizer can be used to increase crop productivity and improve human health.
Coordination with regional partners
including governments, NGOs, and the business community to address policy and market barriers.
ZNI works with various stakeholders in countries with zinc deficient soils to help educate them on the essentiality of zinc fertilizer use, and to empower the in-country stakeholders to take that message forward as their own.
Meet our Members and Partners
See who are members and partners and also learn more about membership benefits.