Soaring fertilizer prices could see millions more undernourished

[Hydrogen]

High fertilizer prices could put an additional 100 million people at risk of undernourishment, a study suggests.

The war in Ukraine has led to the blockade of millions of tons of wheat, barley and corn, but reduced food exports from the region are less of a driver of food price rises than feared, researchers say.

Instead, a modeling study led by University of Edinburgh researchers suggests surging energy and fertilizer prices will have by far the greatest impact on food security in coming decades.

Until now, how energy and fertilizer price rises and export restrictions affects future global food prices was poorly understood. There has also been little analysis to quantify the scale of harm that hikes in the price of food could have on human nutritional health and the environment.

The team used a global land-use computer model to simulate the effects of export restrictions and spikes in production costs on food prices, health and land use until 2040.

Their simulations suggest the combined effect of export restrictions, increased energy costs and mid-2022 fertilizer prices—which are three times higher than at the start of the previous year—could cause food costs to rise by 81% in 2023 compared to 2021 levels.

Export restrictions account for only a small fraction of the simulated price rises, the team says. Halting exports from Russian and Ukraine would increase food costs in 2023 by 2.6%, while spikes in energy and fertilizer prices would cause a 74% rise.

Food price rises would lead to many people's diets becoming poorer, the team says.

The findings suggest there could be up to one million additional deaths and more than 100 million people undernourished if high fertilizer prices continue. The greatest increases in deaths would be in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East.

The modeling estimates that sharp increases in the cost of fertilizers—which are key to producing high yields—would greatly reduce their use by farmers. Without fertilizers more agricultural land is needed to produce the world's food, the team says.

The simulations indicate that by 2030 this could increase agricultural land by an area the size of much of Western Europe—Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the U.K. This would have severe impacts on deforestation, carbon emissions and biodiversity loss, the team says.

The study is published in the journal Nature Food. It also involved researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, Rutgers University in the U.S. and the University of Aberdeen.

Dr. Peter Alexander, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said, "This could be the end of an era of cheap food. While almost everyone will feel the effects of that on their weekly shop, it's the poorest people in society, who may already struggle to afford enough healthy food, who will be hit hardest.

"The Black Sea Grain Initiative is a welcome development and has largely allowed Ukraine food exports to be re-established, but the immediacy of these issues appears to have diverted attention away from the impact of fertilizer prices. While fertilizer prices are coming down from the peaks of earlier this year, they remain high and this may still feed through to continued high food price inflation in 2023. More needs to be done to break the link between higher food prices and harm to human health and the environment."


https://phys.org/news/2022-12-soaring-fertilizer-prices-millions-undernourished.html

....


This sounds troubling.

Their simulations suggest the combined effect of export restrictions, increased energy costs and mid-2022 fertilizer prices—which are three times higher than at the start of the previous year—could cause food costs to rise by 81% in 2023 compared to 2021 levels.

Maybe it is a good time to research methods of producing organic fertilizers? Could there be a good financial opportunity surrounding that sector, if indeed fertilizer costs and food costs are projected to rise?

Or is the media merely being overly negative and pessimistic with this latest series of doom and gloom?

One of the coolest methods I found to produce organic fertilizer is to construct "pigeon towers". They're essentially structures that are built to be friendly for pigeons and birds to roost in. They funnel bird poop into areas which make it easy to collect and use as a natural, organic, fertilizer. In the world of hot start up concepts surely that idea has to count for something? In the old world, some civilizations were known for constructing massive pigeon towers, which appeared as giant stone monoliths, for purposes of simplifying the collection of bird waste.

Of course, there are many other methods. I'm certain there be no shortage of great ideas for producing organic fertilizers as ideas in this era are in abundant supply.

[EarnOnVictor]

It's not news that inflation is plaguing the world's economy, this is expectedly not leaving any aspect of the economy out. The price of fertilizer has been increasing, it's not new because it's a chain reaction as the world battles inflation and inflation is seriously winning. Just like many households would not be able to afford more nutrients naturally because of inflation, that is just the way the increase in the price of fertilizer affects it, it's not new at all.

This is where the action of a responsible government is required. They need to subsidise this so that the effect on the agricultural produce would be minimal to the citizens.

[Gozie51]

Fertilizer is important for agricultural processes and lack of it can lead to food scarcity. No doubt that fertilizer is not the only thing or commodity that is affected by high inflation globally but I think it should be made a priority by governments across to avoid shortage of it. If the government is not showing concern in fertilizer production , this means that agriculture will suffer and food shortage will increase. Like in Nigeria, this is becoming a bigger challenge to do agriculture with the price of fertilizer increasing over 100% which is double of the initial price and this makes the smaller farmers whose products can go alongway to support commercial farmers helping to push price of products down is now lacking. The result of this is that commercial farmers have no competition because even small farmers who do house hold farming join in the bulk of the market buyers of agriculture products.

[Zlantann]

One of the main reason for the prediction of an increase in the price of fertilizer might be the high cost of raw materials such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Apart from the use of organic fertilizer to substitute the scarce or expensive NPK fertilizer seeking for alternative raw materials might be a good option.

Most countries have alternative raw materials that can serve as alternative raw materials but they have failed to research and explore these resources because they can cheaply import fertilizers from other countries. This high price of fertilizer is a wakeup call to lazy nations to look inward and tap thier idle raw materials. If they can produce thier own fertilizer, the price wouldn't be high. Most country would also increase thier production capacity.There is a report that Indonesia has large deposit raw materials such as leucite, phlogopite, trachyte and biotite that can make them a major exporter of fertilizer. Nigeria is currently producing below it's capacity because of lack of investment in the fertilizer sector.

[franky1]

california will suffer first

#vegan #climate  =  #no-cow-poop

how are they suppose to have organic fertiliser if they dont want cows in farms pooping and having that poop slurry collected and sold to other farmers..

oh wait.. they will probably say put human sewerage onto lettuce fields
oh great yummy. all human medicated bio-waste, with sprinkles of contraceptive pill , steroids and a layer of sanitary pads and wetwipes.. oh and then a nice splash of oxycodone or whatever legal high people take these days.... yummy.

[crwth]

In terms of research, there are already a lot of studies that are looking into producing fertilizers from organic sources and sustainable ways to answer the problems that we are currently facing. All we need is implementation. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/search?qs=fertilizer

As you can see from the link above, there are already almost 200k researchers that are tackling the problem of the global challenge that we have right now, just on a single publisher. Imagine the other publishers' research as well. There are already a lot, but there should be a significant impact factor in the actual application of the study.

[franky1]

In terms of research, there are already a lot of studies that are looking into producing fertilizers from organic sources and sustainable ways to answer the problems that we are currently facing. All we need is implementation. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/search?qs=fertilizer

As you can see from the link above, there are already almost 200k researchers that are tackling the problem of the global challenge that we have right now, just on a single publisher. Imagine the other publishers' research as well. There are already a lot, but there should be a significant impact factor in the actual application of the study.

true organic fertiliser is literally free.. farmers need to dispose of the poop slurry because they will be fined if they just let it seep into ground water, rivers
so they are happy to give it away to horticulture farmers

however having to "manufacture/process" to produce fertilizers from organics(compost) takes time and land and money thus no longer a free by product. and its this manufacturing of compost which this topic is partly addressing by showing fertiliser prices are increasing

[Sithara007]

true organic fertiliser is literally free.. farmers need to dispose of the poop slurry because they will be fined if they just let it seep into ground water, rivers
so they are happy to give it away to horticulture farmers

however having to "manufacture/process" to produce fertilizers from organics(compost) takes time and land and money thus no longer a free by product. and its this manufacturing of compost which this topic is partly addressing by showing fertiliser prices are increasing

I am not that optimistic about organic fertilizer replacing synthetic ones. First of all, not enough quantity is available. And secondly, organic fertilizers can't provide all the nutrients that the plants need. A fraction of the Ammonia-based fertilizers can be replaced with organic fertilizer such as cow dung and poultry waste. But I don't think that Potash fertilizers can be replaced with any of the organic alternatives (glauconite has been tried as a replacement without much success). At this point, Russia and Belarus account for almost 40% of the global potash exports.

[Ucy]

One of the main reasons the world always come to foolish conclusions generated by research and computer simulations is that they remove the CREATOR of Heaven and Earth out of the equation. I remember their predictions about covid and others, but they failed to factor in the realignments that already occurred especially shortly before covid pandemic.   The poor who do not depend on the evil system are heavily protected.  
By the way, synthetic fertilizer do not produce good foods nor  rich harvest. You need the right farmers to produce good foods and rich harvest not those that believe that poisoning foods with toxic chemicals will make them grow. Try and grow some foods in greenhouse with soil rich in natural/organic manure and you probably notice the difference. How are you sure the synthetic fertilizer are not  filled with growth hormones?

[el kaka22]

The reality is that we are just way too late to changing our farming methods, the year is 2023 and we are still basing our food production on huge lands and tractors and farmers who would raise those crops.

I am sorry but this had to change long time ago into something that would be just vertical farming in warehouses and you could grow 10x more crops in 10% of the land required, and a lot more healthier that way as well since there won't be any pest or anything that would go there and bugs and dirt etc etc. It would be pure clean and profitable while being organic and healthy at the same time. We need to make that the common thing for sure.

[franky1]

one mega thing about the requirement of fertiliser is ...
industrial farming

100= years ago the soil was ripe. rich with fertile soil untouched for millenia..  naturally ripe without mans intervention needed to add anything..
feet/metres deep of nutrients settled in over millenia of autumns .
which due to non industrial farming back then replenished each year

but industrial farming make the land naturally infertile by using up the normal rich soil in just 60 days per harvest. where they then had to plough(churn/flip) the soil to bring the deeper soil to the top.. and then more recently had to mix in slurry into infertile soil to add fertility..

now they say animal slurry is bad due to excess phosphorus

[Gyfts]

Even if alternative fertilizers are utilized, you still need them in scale to make up for the supply that was diminished from the war.

As with most things, food shortages are going to effect impoverished countries the most. Rich countries will just dedicate federal funds towards food subsidies and if they have a GDP large enough, it will be sustainable until the shortages resolve itself. Poor countries will lose millions of people over time before shortages resolve themselves.

[STT]

Prices serve a purpose to justify investment, the damage is most often in a spike of prices unforeseen but its clear we need to invest in food production long term and the global GDP and world population require greater resources and supply security.
   I'm aware of a few fertilizer projects costing billions, a massive amount of faith must be expressed in these future markets and the profitability to justify money spent now and borrowed in hope of returns a decade or more from today.   One persons view of higher prices as a negative is another's hope rock for the stability of their project vision.   If we are requiring so much more food in future I'd rather this was apparent as soon as possible so we can build for that certainty, so long as the prices are correct long term its a good thing to enable growth in supply which can take years to ensure.

[Argoo]

I am not that optimistic about organic fertilizer replacing synthetic ones. First of all, not enough quantity is available. And secondly, organic fertilizers can't provide all the nutrients that the plants need. A fraction of the Ammonia-based fertilizers can be replaced with organic fertilizer such as cow dung and poultry waste. But I don't think that Potash fertilizers can be replaced with any of the organic alternatives (glauconite has been tried as a replacement without much success). At this point, Russia and Belarus account for almost 40% of the global potash exports.

Organic fertilizers can completely replace synthetic ones. If you use for this various weeds and other unnecessary green mass mixed with dried, there will be absolutely all the nutrients necessary for plants. But organic fertilizers, based on high physical costs, are more suitable for household and small farms. For large agricultural enterprises, synthetic fertilizers are still indispensable.

Any wars, and especially such large ones as the current Russian-Ukrainian one, disrupt the established logistical routes for world trade. Mankind needs to develop effective measures to quickly curb any military aggressor.

[pantek talacuik]

I am not that optimistic about organic fertilizer replacing synthetic ones. First of all, not enough quantity is available. And secondly, organic fertilizers can't provide all the nutrients that the plants need. A fraction of the Ammonia-based fertilizers can be replaced with organic fertilizer such as cow dung and poultry waste. But I don't think that Potash fertilizers can be replaced with any of the organic alternatives (glauconite has been tried as a replacement without much success). At this point, Russia and Belarus account for almost 40% of the global potash exports.

Organic fertilizers can completely replace synthetic ones. If you use for this various weeds and other unnecessary green mass mixed with dried, there will be absolutely all the nutrients necessary for plants. But organic fertilizers, based on high physical costs, are more suitable for household and small farms. For large agricultural enterprises, synthetic fertilizers are still indispensable.

Any wars, and especially such large ones as the current Russian-Ukrainian one, disrupt the established logistical routes for world trade. Mankind needs to develop effective measures to quickly curb any military aggressor.

Actions that governments should take to pay attention to the nutrition of all their citizens. this cannot be left alone. There's a lot to think about when something like this happens. but maybe the government has or is looking for alternatives to get good fertilizer for its people.

[franky1]

there are now horticultural businesses that are completely skipping the "fertiliser"(animal/plant byproduct) stage

hydroponics is replacing the need of animal/plant by-product matter. and going straight to mineral feed

some are even getting the prices down of compost fertiliser. by diluting compost/manure in water to shake out the minerals from the compost into a potent mineral pool. to then need less compost/manure per plant

afterall why need to fill a field with fertiliser/compost to a 1foot(12 inches) depth layer, which includes the empty space between plants. when you can just feed the plants roots with 1inch of mineral saturated water

[Darker45]

We have already been suffering from this even before the invasion in Europe happened. The war as well as the pandemic only exacerbated the situation. But even without them, fertilizer here has always been expensive.

Urea, for example, if I'm not mistaken, is at least twice more expensive than in other countries. This is one of the reasons why our vegetables here are expensive. The production cost is already high. The middlemen and the hoarders and the cartels are making everything even worse. Not to mention that there are also natural calamities and a worthless government.

You'd be surprised to know that my poor country has more expensive carrots, potatoes, cabbage, onions, and other vegetables than rich countries. We're a developing country with food prices higher than in highly developed countries.

[franky1]

We have already been suffering from this even before the invasion in Europe happened. The war as well as the pandemic only exacerbated the situation. But even without them, fertilizer here has always been expensive.

Urea, for example, if I'm not mistaken, is at least twice more expensive than in other countries. This is one of the reasons why our vegetables here are expensive. The production cost is already high. The middlemen and the hoarders and the cartels are making everything even worse. Not to mention that there are also natural calamities and a worthless government.

You'd be surprised to know that my poor country has more expensive carrots, potatoes, cabbage, onions, and other vegetables than rich countries. We're a developing country with food prices higher than in highly developed countries.

processed/manufactured "urea" aka phosphates is expensive.. but natural(organic) urea aka livestock urine. is a by product livestock farms want to get rid of for free/at cost

some farmers have efficiency methods to deliver phosphates and minerals to plant roots directly and in proportion to plants needs(hydroponics), without wastefully just spraying tonnes of it on baron fields and hope enough leaches into the soil to feed the plants(eg sometimes monsoons/floods wash away the top layers thus become a wasted task that does not feed the plants the nutrients.)

its not really a "blame fertiliser" thing. its a less than modern/efficient farming that is to blame for why some crops dont yield their full potential

getting processed phosphates used to be soo cheap due to cheap imports that farmers just bought the imports and sprayed to their hearts content. without caring about asking their nearby livestock farmer for urine/manure.

now its got more expensive farmers are not realising there are other ways, the y are stuck in their old practices of importing cheap. that they are shocked when prices go up

but.. there are other ways. i dont see a long term problem i just see a temporary transition to a new way of farming

[sana54210]

Organic fertilizers can completely replace synthetic ones. If you use for this various weeds and other unnecessary green mass mixed with dried, there will be absolutely all the nutrients necessary for plants. But organic fertilizers, based on high physical costs, are more suitable for household and small farms. For large agricultural enterprises, synthetic fertilizers are still indispensable.

Any wars, and especially such large ones as the current Russian-Ukrainian one, disrupt the established logistical routes for world trade. Mankind needs to develop effective measures to quickly curb any military aggressor.

You can't, that would be impossible because human nature leans on war whenever they find a reason for it. I know that you and I would probably never side with any war ever, but there are tons of people out there, specially the ones who are likely to get votes, like the war because there are enough people who would vote for someone who likes militarism.

I could go out and say "if you elect me as president I would disband the whole military" and I would get zero votes. This is why it's much better to focus on how we could go around wars, not stop them. It would be amazing if we could stop them, but if we can't then at least find a way to keep food prices and gas prices low if it ever happens.

[franky1]

solution to war

thunderdome
let the 2 presidents of waring countries PERSONALLY enter a cage
2 may enter 1 may leave

if 2 presidents want a fight.. let THEM fight not their citizens

wars happen because presidents decide they want to fight. but hide behind their silk ties and wooden desks telling others to fight for them.

if they want to propose a war.. they should 'reside' (occupy) in the war