Fertiliser: Peak phosphorous poses threat to farming
February 8th, 2010
An inevitable tightening of global supplies of phosphorus could prove a major challenge to modern farming practices. Unlike nitrogen, which can by synthesised from the air, or the use of renewable energy to substitute for fossil fuels, there is no substitute for phosphorus. All the world’s phosphate fertilisers come from mined phosphate rock, making it a finite resource. Various analyses suggest “peak phosphorus” – the point at which supply falls behind demand – will occur around 2040, with all currently known reserves potentially exhausted within 50 to 100 years.
However, University of Technology Sydney researchers Dana Cordell and Stuart White warn for most countries, a phosphorus squeeze is likely to come much sooner. Demand for phosphorus is growing in line with population growth, and is being pushed higher by greater consumption of meat in countries like China and India. Few nations have access to enough phosphorus to supply their own agricultural needs: in fact, most of the world’s known phosphate reserves are controlled by China, the US and Morocco. The US, historically the world’s largest consumer, importer and exporter of phosphate fertilisers, is now thought to have only about 25 years of domestic phosphate reserves left.
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