Genesis Fertilizers Limited Partnership has selected Saskatchewan as the site for its proposed $1.7 billion Urea Fertilizer Plant.

Barrie Mann, vice president of investor relations, says they are looking at building a state-of-the-art 700,000 metric tonne urea facility.

"What that means is it'll produce about 2000 tonnes a day. Our plan is to take those tonnes and actually move them direct-to-farm. Sell them directly to farmers, so farmers are going to be the owners of this. They own a percent of the plant, based on the amount of fertilizer that they use on the farm. They're the business owner, but they're also the customer of the business. So it's a very tight integrated closed loop system."

Genesis Fertilizers has significant work ahead in the capital raise, as well as engineering and design.

He says engineering takes an estimated 12 months and construction is about a 32-month build start to finish, once you go shovel in the ground.

The Saskferco plant (which is now YARA) was built about 30 years ago and took 32 months to build.

He says the proposed facility would be built at Belle Plaine, which is where Genesis Fertilizer and Grains has a fertilizer distribution centre.

The distribution centre is now up and operational, and involves 650 farmer investors from across the prairies.

In the future, Genesis is also looking at setting up more distribution centres across the prairies where farmers would access their fertilizer.

He says the overall structure with both is designed to allow farmers ownership in the plant, giving them more control over one of their number one costs on the farm.

Recently, the Genesis Fertilizers Board welcomed two new directors Garth Whyte and Kathy Jordison.

Mann says both bring a lot of knowledge and experience in the fertilizer industry to the board.

Garth Whyte is the past president and CEO of Fertilizer Canada, while Kathy Jordison has been in the fertilizer industry for 25 years and previously served as Yara Canada's vice president of asset development.

More information on the proposed 700,000 metric tonne urea fertilizer plant is available on their website here.

To hear Glenda-Lee's conversation with Barrie Mann click on the link below.