Image: Jen Christiansen
In Brief
- Mining phosphorus for fertilizer is consuming the mineral faster than geologic cycles can replenish it. The U.S. may runout of its accessible domestic sources in a few decades, and few other countries have substantial reserves, which could also be depleted in about a century.
- Excess phosphorus in waterways helps to feed algal blooms, which starve fish of oxygen, creating “dead zones.”
- Reducing soil erosion and recycling phosphorus from farm and human waste could help make food production sustainable and prevent algal blooms.
As complex as the chemistry of life may be, the conditions for the vigorous growth of plants often boil down to three numbers, say, 19-12-5. Those are the percentages of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, prominently displayed on every package of fertilizer. In the 20th century the three nutrients enabled agriculture to increase its productivity and the world’s population to grow more than sixfold. But what is their source? We obtain nitrogen from the air, but we must mine phosphorus and potassium. The world has enough potassium to last several centuries. But phosphorus is a different story. Readily available global supplies may start running out by the end of this century. By then our population may have reached a peak that some say is beyond what the planet can sustainably feed.
Moreover, trouble may surface much sooner. As last year’s oil price swings have shown, markets can tighten long before a given resource is anywhere near its end. And reserves of phosphorus are even less evenly distributed than oil’s, raising additional supply concerns. The U.S. is the world’s second-largest producer of phosphorus (after China), at 19 percent of the total, but 65 percent of that amount comes from a single source: pit mines near Tampa, Fla., which may not last more than a few decades. Meanwhile nearly 40 percent of global reserves are controlled by a single country, Morocco, sometimes referred to as the “Saudi Arabia of phosphorus.” Although Morocco is a stable, friendly nation, the imbalance makes phosphorus a geostrategic ticking time bomb.
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39 Comments
Add CommentYes, phosphorus is a weak spot in industrial agriculture. The remedies that Dr. Vaccaro are welcome, but we cannot now say whether they would prevent or merely forestall a reckoning. Soils are complex media. In a given year a typical crop takes up less than 25% of what the farmers apply as chemical fertilizer or manure. Does Dr.Vaccaro know of any long-term studies of what happens to the residual phosphorus? Unless much of it is released in forms available to subsequent crops, recycling at best slows depletion by a fourth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydroponics would recycle P more efficiently, but to take that path, or to exploit low-grade deposits, we would need to use more of two other cricical resources: water and energy. As the article says, the ultimate question is limits to human population (and appetites).
This is fascinating and very timely. I would'nt call it a "crisis" though. That depends on your point of view. It would be great for the Gulf of Mexico, for most of the algae-choked lakes on the planet that have agricultural watersheds, and for people who use them for recreation or drinking water. Here's hoping that improvements in technology and agricultural practices will keep up with the shortage so that we can eat, drink, water-ski, and fish too. Thank you for the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI remember the article, "Life's Bottleneck" written by Isaac Asimov on exactly this topic written 50 years ago. April 1959 and republished in the book "On Chemistry" from 1974.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStill and always a prophet. Glad to see that the rest of the world beginning to listen to what he wrote before my time!
In that article, he wrote that phosphorus limited life even without the additional losses caused by human efforts. And showed that the basic bottleneck of available phosphorus would set a maximum limit as to how much life the earth could support.
Then we add our own messes and it gets worse.
Though the article itself is generally comprehensive and raises many important points, the author is sorely mistaken when he states that Morocco is a ''stable, friendly nation''. In fact, most of the phosphorus reserves that he attributes to Morocco are actually in the Western Sahara: a sovereign country which has been occupied by Morocco since 1975. He grossly underestimates the ''geostrategic ticking time bomb'' that would not be glossed over with so much ease if the mines were in other, more well-known, occupied territories. Indeed the effect of phosphorus tariffs from China and subsidies in India are illustrating in east asia, and indeed around the world, how geostrategic phosphorus really is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd say Morocco is stable and friendly today relative to what we will call them when we inveade to take thier Potassium mines. That's your point isn't it e?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting article.. I do take exception, though, to the description of preindustrial farming practices as prescientific.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"In prescientific agriculture, when human and animal waste served as fertilizers, nutrients went back into the soil at roughly the rate they had been withdrawn."
Prescientific implies that traditional / organic agriculture practices of composting and recycling wastes lack scientific credibility, and as a descriptor is irrelevant, and not accurate. Preindustrial would be more to the point, without the hidden agenda...
Paragraph 1: The word "runout" was incorrectly used. You meant "run out"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrun�out n.
1. The act or an instance of fleeing so as to evade undesirable consequences.
2. The area where one curved surface merges with another: a snowy runout at the bottom of the ski slope.
3. The act or an instance of expiring or having expired: the runout of an executive contract.
Check out the oildrum.com Peak phosphorus: Quoted reserves vs. production history
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPosted by Gail the Actuary on October 9, 2008 - 9:58am
Point Counter Point by A. Huxley 1928 is on point.
If you are interested in the topic of phosphate conservation and recycling in soils I highly recommend the book entitled "Efficiency of Soil and Phosphorus Use, Reconciling Changing Concepts of Soil Phosphorus Behaviour with Agronomic Information." This is published by FAO and is Fertilizer and Plant Nutrition Bulletin #18.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe main conclusion of this report is that the efficiency of fertilizer P use is often very high (up to 90%) when evaluated over an adequate time scale using the balance method.
As one of the comments points out, Asimov thought it was a crisis in 1959, before most of us were born. Maybe he was a prophet or maybe he was just wrong, as projections of crisis based on running out of any resource are usually wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW - I was recently stationed in western Iraq and saw vast phosphate mines, almost entirely unexploited. They are just too far from markets – at TODAY’S prices.
We won't run out of phosphorous in any practical sense. The greater challenge, also mentioned in the article is pollution. Here we have learned a lot and we can address this problem through better land management and we have to remove the stigma from biosolids.
Biosolids (aka treated sewage) can be a excellent, inexpensive fertilizer. It closes the phosphorous circle. I like to use them on degraded land low in P & N, those reddish soils now growing pines in the South. Other fertilizer is too expensive for this purpose AND doesn’t have the environmental benefits. Unfortunately, outdated regulations and fear mongering prejudice prevent wider application. Biosolids can indeed stink, literally, but there is no wisdom in flushing them away or putting them in landfills when we need them on the land helping plants grow.
John Matel
We do produce lots of phosphorus... we just waste it by flushing toilets. Recycling urine in your garden is a green-smart way to increase the supply.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWestern Sahara, now dominated by Morocco, that forced the ethnic inhabitants away, was once an Spanish province, with rights equal to those of mainlans spaniards. May be the US intelligence thought that Morocco is a more reliable phosphorus supplier than Spain?, or do they feared that the Algiers-prone extreme left oriented Polisario send phosphate to the USSR?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChicken Little strikes again. How many times do these folks have to be wrong before people quit listening to them?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI study soils from a farm dirt base, we tried biosolids but contamination is an issue. organic Farms will be well ahead, item on organic and commercial here is interesting, note they avoid saying what! avg organic yield is...might show things up! they do point out without massive fertilizer applications the GM plants and hi tech hybrids are a waste of time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Supply-Chain/Wheat-yields-will-be-slashed-as-phosphate-runs-out-warns-scientist
Warming temperatures and increasing CO2 is how we have managed to feed "the worlds population to grow more than sixfold". While fertilizers increase yields, they are only effective during warm temperatures. Putting fertilizer on a crop that is cool, only produces rot and pollution. It is warmer temperatures that makes it work so wonderfully. A warming planet produces bumper crops. A slight cooling, will decrease yields immediately, putting our global food supply in deficit and the woe will begin!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think we can replace every element by a tripple amount of anthor subtance. Russel in his book mention that for nitrogen. We have biological phosphorus and with 25 kg/ hectar biological phosphorus we can satisfy the needs of seeds and if we find replacement for phoaphorus for more use of this material we add the other material. we can add this like manure we add to the soil. we have to produce it as well by atomic methode. bombarding by helium ,for example, a lower element place in the periodical table and produce phosphorus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRussell in his book has mentioned we can use for example 3 times silicon instead of nitrogen and the effect is the same and we can use less nitrogen fertilizer. For phosphorus it can be the same and we can find materials to replace for the growth of the seeds. For the nutrition effects we Can use only 25kg phosphorus/ hectar and add the materials we find like we add the manure to the soil. just as a fictive example 50kg chellate of iron and other additives to 50 kg gypsum or lime. Besides, we can produce the phosphorus by an atomic methods for example by bombarding a lower place and abundant element than phosphorus in periodic table by helium and producing phosphorus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRussell in his book has mentioned we can use for example 3 times silicon instead of nitrogen and the effect is the same and we can use less nitrogen fertilizer. For phosphorus it can be the same and we can find materials to replace for the growth of the seeds. For the nutrition effects we Can use only 25kg phosphorus/ hectar and add the materials we find like we add the manure to the soil. just as a fictive example 50kg chellate of iron and other additives to 50 kg gypsum or lime. Besides, we can produce the phosphorus by an atomic methods for example by bombarding a lower place and abundant element than phosphorus in periodic table by helium and producing phosphorus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe tone of this article was very interesting. For the most part it adhered to the doom and gloom scenario (shortages.....90 years from now!), but the author did at least mention the opinions of those who are more optimistic about phosphorus supplies (or substitutions). Progress, I guess, since 10 years ago it would have been 100% doom and gloom with no mention of the optimists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou seem to think that bombarding?? to create another Synth product, from industrial waste.. is sane?? hello? All man made solutions use more fossil fuels and embodied energy. This is what got us into the strife we are IN now! There is so much unavailable phosphorus is most soils they don't need any at all! what they need is organic matter and biota, which Conventional fertilizer KILLS. to enable the soil to do what it does perfectly well, naturally! it is NOT the Ph it is the CATION Balance that is the MOST important factor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMay I suggest you go read The ALBRECHT papers, and also Charles walters, Arden Anderson, sit and consider! These men PROVED their statements MANY YEARS AGO, but as it doesn't enrich and Agribusiness or promote useless and dangerous GM it has been ignored as low tech, It is far smarter and safer and productive than any "modern" so called solution.
Phosphorus; yes, farmers would be glad to take all your suggestions if they were supported by the system within which they must operate from Govt. programs to chemical/seed company options, grant $$$ offered for positive impact practices, etc. There's lots of intrenched interests against this---not news!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou might also add to the list--putting undertakers out of business by also using human bones instead of filling up nice land with more cemetaries--or is that too practical.
giletlb..Amazingly, if a farmer chooses to grow seed he saves and isnt paying copyright and PVR on, and uses natural fertilizers and simple rock dusts for mineralisation, he can still be as well off as if he was following those blind govt reccomendations to get a subsidy for killing his land.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat extra 10 to 15$ a acre for Gm and "fiddled seedstock" +commercial chem and fert all add into the production, and take at the silos! If your input dropped by at least 2/3rds it makes up for subsidies. And then you are only at Natures Mercy, as are we all...not the chemcos!!
Soil biota are the driving force behind what the plants can access and what the soil will provide, most times it is there, just unbalanced and bio- UN available due to hitech, low IQ "modern farming"
Something missing from this picture: arsenic. Since arsenic is chemically similar to phosphorous, phosphate rock contains arsenic. Florida rock for instance has more than Idaho rock. When that is used to make fertilizer, where does the arsenic go?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJ quasimodo, idaho rock info was 35$a page!! to read for a day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbut heres a couple i find interesting
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=17642238
http://www.springerlink.com/content/tx8dqgedmjyn6rd0/
I worry more with cadmium levels in Commercial fertilizers, using fly ash!! Warnings on sack, do NOT graze animals, yet?? we are eating the grain, so are the animals.
from the above 2nd item I believe it supports - Again if the cation Balance is out of balance thats how the accumulations, and inbalances that lead to toxic conditions start.
TOO MUCH phosphorus forces release of Arsenic.
Using a catch crop plant for bioremediation as in item 1, is also do able
Broadnax : The problem with putting treated sewage sludge on agricultural land is that such sludges are generally toxic. This is because so many industries inject their liquid waste into public sewers. Logically, all industrial waste should be treated at its source, but companies often negociate with the public authorities for them to take it if diluted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is crazy. Public treatment plants use biological methods of treatment, whereas industrial wastes require specific chemical treatment. But this costs more for firms.
The end result is a sort of anarchy, where even households use powerful chemical products which they would dare not use if they had septic tanks. Public sewage stations only operate at a fraction of their theoretical efficiency because of toxins they were not designed to treat.
What is needed is some strict legislation so that sewage sludges can become harmless fertilisers. All industrial wastes should be dehydrated and sent to properly managed dump sites where they can be buried and do no harm.
Fertilizer runoff can be recaptured by diverting a portion of river water into settling ponds or marshland behind levees. The settling areas can either be used for rice production or periodically dredged so the silt can be spread on neighboring farmland. This would be a good deal for those farmers - their fertilizer is mostly paid for by their competitors upstream.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSimilarly, silted-in reservoirs can be dredged for fertile silt. There would be some issues with pesticide contamination, but probably no more than already exist with conventional agricultural practices.
The economic case for dredging eutrophicated littoral sediments is somewhat more problematic, given the greater depths and greater issues with contamination. However, if the need is sufficient, it may worth developing a desalinization and cleanup process.
As for municipal wastes, perhaps we should change to a dual-track sewage system. Organic waste goes down one pipe to the fertilizer/methane production plant, other waste goes to an industrial waste processing plant. The changeover will take some time, but if the financial benefit to municipalities is readily apparent, it will happen eventually.
The graphic "Concentrated Resources" in the print version shows that Canada has only 25 million metric tons of phosphate rock reserves, but PhosCan's Martison Project in Ontario has 62 million metric tons measured and indicated 23.55% phosphate rock, plus 55.7 million tons inferred resources averaging 21.87% phosphate (December 2008 data). This facility is still under development. Is that why it was not included in the Canadian resource listing? http://www.phoscan.ca
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDisclosure: I am a PhosCan shareholder. Don't take my word for the value of the stock; as always, do your own due diligence before you consider trading.
I note the concern expressed in this article but must point out that the efficiency of phosphorus utilization by plants may be increased using a biomineral synergy technique developed here, and in addition, the capture of phosphorus from a natural process is now possible. We have achieved crop trial results superior to those obtained by superhosphate, using a biomineral fertilizer containing less than 2% P. Far from an impending shortage, the planet offers agriculture unlimited supply of phosphorus if we know where to look.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBarry Hayes
Adelaide\Australia
no, my point was that 'friendliness' is in the eye of the friendless- I doubt that the Sahrawi people, whose phosphorus is being taken from them- have the same perception of Morocco as being 'friendly'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot nearly enough has been made in this article, or indeed the comments on the issue, of closing the nutrient cycle and the enormous greenhouse gas emissions that flow from nutrient flows around the world both as fertilizers and as food. The US option of switching sources from Florida to Morocco is made as though it has no consequences as a result emissions resulting from transport.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am glad to see that reference in made to urine diverting toilets, which could be a major technology to keep nutrients closer to sites of food production, provided of course we choose to buy locally produced, in-season foods.
a warming planet also produces greater weather extremes - and - come to Australia - a lot more desert, a lot less arable land, fewer lakes, low flowing or not flowing river systems...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA warming planet also produces an increasing number of destructive weather events, a decreasing inflow of freshwater from high altitude snow/ice/glacier (after an initial peak as glaciers recede and snow volumes drop).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd - come to Australia -more desert, less arable land, fewer lakes, diminished stream / river flows. Indeed some 'no flows' and for ever longer periods. This country's single mighty river system risks being reduced to a series of muddy lakes. The 'Mighty Murray's end may nearer in more ways than one. Check the Lower Lakes ... Lake Albert especially and lake Alexandrina.
http://www.3ragrocarbon.com/Img/Black.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInformation on the complex environmental problems of the chemosynthetic fertilizers
<a href="http://www.bestdissertation.org/">best dissertation</a>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "Phosphorus Famine: The Threat to Our Food Supply" is correctly specify the critically important P problem. Further Phosphorous interconnected information can be found on the European Union AGRI-NET web page: http://ec.europa.eu/research/agriculture/success_protector_en.htm and http://www.3ragrocarbon.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEdward Someus
The "Phosphorus Famine: The Threat to Our Food Supply" article correctly highlights the criticall important problems of the P supply. Additional impoprtant P information can be found on the European Union AGRINET web page:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://ec.europa.eu/research/agriculture/success_protector_en.htm and
http://www.3ragrocarbon.com
Edward Someus
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/08/11/nutritional-differences-in-organic-vs-conventional-foods-and-the-winner-is/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Reducing soil erosion and recycling phosphorus from farm and human waste could help make food production sustainable and prevent algal blooms." Actually, this isn't true unless the human population is reduced drastically - and it contradicts your first statement - "Mining phosphorus for fertilizer is consuming the mineral faster than geologic cycles can replenish it." We've gone through the global supply of mine-able phosphorus in a little over 100 years. That horrific rate of use isn't going to be sustained by even the most heroic conservation efforts. You can kiss the benefits of the green revolution good by in the next 50 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPhosphorus is an element so it's never going to run out. It just gets dispersed, and has to be gathered up again. Lucky there is something on earth that is very good at gathering up Phosphorus. It's called life, and it just so happens to be all over the place. Living thing are made up of about 1 percent phosphorus which is already ten times better than the .1 percent average in the lithosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about this. A lot of the phosphorus used in agriculture ends up in the oceans. The oceans are becoming overrun with jellyfish because of over fishing. Jellyfish are mostly water so if you dry up all that water what you are left with will have a fairly high concentration of phosphorus. Why don't we all take a break from purging the oceans of fish and instead use our fishing fleets on the jellyfish. We can dry them out it in the sun and use what remains as fertilizer. The fish get a chance to repopulate we get fertilizer, win win.