This EXCLUSIVE feature (with part 2 next time) deals with phosphorus availability to farming. While the primary thing that's going on in North Africa right now is a fight for democracy, in the context of this article, North Africa takes on a new significance...Especially Morocco .
Read on to see why....
(pic: phosphorus mining, from tree hugger)
Sometimes, it seems, its not that it rains but it pours. Just as the economy nosedives, a whole range of agri-food peaks seem to be emerging in tandem.
There's an impending peak in global oil availability. There is the peak of 350 parts per million in atmospheric carbon, which we have passed but hope to drop back to. Without doing so, we are over what scientists consider to be the safe limit and may trigger runaway climate change.
And now, there's peak phosphorus.
Of the farmers' Holy Trinity of N, P and K in the stalwart bag of 10-10-20, its the K that's most at risk.
While mined potassium will be available for centuries, and while nitrogen can be fixed from the air, mined phosphorus may only have decades left. What's more, a peak in supply may, according to a new report issued by the UK's Soil Association, come as soon as 2033.
This report, �A rock and a hard place: Peak phosphorus and the threat to our food security� points out that once we come close to and reach this peak, prices will inevitably start to rise.
Crucially, agriculture will have to adapt to this or face the possibility of failing to feed even more than the 8-900 million it currently fails to feed.
What has been called by the Scientific American �a geostrategic time bomb� colours the situation significantly: there are just three main global sources of phosphorus - the US, China and Morocco/Western Sahara.
According to the Soil Association report, �In 2009, 158 million metric tonnes of phosphate
rock was mined worldwide. 67% of this resource was mined in just three countries - China (35%), the USA (17%) and Morocco and Western Sahara (15%). China has now restricted, and the USA has stopped, exports of phosphate�.
So that basically leaves the rest of the world depending on Morocco.
The report claims that phosphate availability �is missing from the global policy agenda - we are completely unprepared to deal with the shortages in phosphorus inputs, the drop in production and the hike in food prices that will follow. Without fertilisation from phosphorus it has been estimated that wheat yields could more then halve in coming decades, falling from nine tonnes a hectare to four tonnes a hectare.�
Research released in 2008 by the pan-European QLIF (Quality Low Input Food) project reported found even more stark figures. It suggested that without phosphorus, non-organic wheat yields could fall from an average of eight to just 2.5 tonnes per hectare, while organic yields (of six tonnes per hectare) would also decline, though not as starkly. This is because organic farming encourages a wider number of sources of phosphate input.
According to Professor Carlo Leifert, one of the scientists at the University of Newcastle working on the project, �If you look at textbooks from 30 years ago, they estimate that we had about 500 years of phosphorus left. Now we are using about 125 million tonnes each year. Even optimists � and we are optimists � estimate that there is no more than about 60 years of phosphorus left now. And you can�t substitute one mineral fertiliser with another.�
The 2010 Soil Association report points out that �the current price of phosphate rock is approximately twice that of 2006. When demand for phosphate fertiliser outstripped supply in 2007/08, the price of rock phosphate rose 800%.�
It continues �A radical rethink of how we farm, what we eat and how we deal with human excreta, so that adequate phosphorus levels can be maintained without reliance on mined phosphate, is crucial for ensuring our future food supplies.�
No comments:
Post a Comment