Green Daily

Around the world, the introduction of inexpensive chemical fertilizer helped power higher growths of rice and corn, leading to richer diets and less malnutrition. According to a recent NY Times article, this is all threatened by soaring prices for chemical fertilizer, which is now an essential ingredient of agriculture. This increase in fertilizer prices is one of the factors contributing to the crushing rise in food prices around the world, a rise that the UN says could push tens of millions of people into malnutrition.

What else comes into play? Biofuels, of course. Fertilizer mines were unable to keep up with the rising demand for fertilizer, both for food and for biofuels. Another factor is the increased demand for meat around the world, which uses up a lot more resources than a vegetarian diet.

Once new supplies become available, as new plants are built, environmental groups fear that increased use of nitrogen fertilizer, which is made from fossil fuels, could cause increased pollution. Plants do not absorb all of the nitrogen in chemical fertilizer and it runs off into streams and groundwater, causing dead zones where rivers meet the sea, like in the Gulf of Mexico.

But without chemical fertilizers, some experts like Vaclav Smil, a professor at the University of Manitoba, calculate that there wouldn't be enough food for 40 percent of the world's population.