The Fertilizer Industry, World Food Supplies and the ...large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph240/yuan2/docs/1998_IFA_UNEP... · The Fertilizer Industry, World Food Supplies and the Environment

1The Fertilizer Industry, World Food Supplies and the Environment

The Fertilizer Industry,World Food Suppliesand the Environment

International Fertilizer Industry AssociationUnited Nations Environment Programme

INTERNATIONAL FERTILIZERINDUSTRY ASSOCIATION

28, RUE MARBEUF75008 PARIS - FRANCE

TEL: +33 153 930 500FAX: +33 153 930 547EMAIL: [email protected]://www.fertilizer.org

UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME

INDUSTRY AND ENVIRONMENT

39-43, QUAI ANDRE CITROËN75739 PARIS CEDEX 15 - FRANCE

TEL: +33 144 371 450FAX: +33 144 371 474EMAIL: [email protected]://www.unepie.org

The Fertilizer Industry, World Food Supplies and the Environment 2

First published under the title "The Fertilizer Industry - The Key to World Food Supplies",International Fertilizer Industry Association, 1986.Revised version published by the International Fertilizer Industry Association.Paris, December 1998.

AcknowledgmentsMr. Kenneth Windridge, former Secretary General of IFA, previously ISMA, co-ordinatedthe 1986 publication and is largely responsible for writing the present document.

Dr. Martin Trenkel, formerly of BASF, who also was closely involved in the preparation ofthe 1986 publication, has kindly reviewed the text.

Copyright. 1998 IFA. All rights reserved.ISBN: 2-9506299-2-X

Copies can be obtained from:IFA28, rue Marbeuf75008 Paris, FranceTel: +33 153 930 500Fax: +33 153 930 545 /546 /547Email: [email protected]: http://www.fertilizer.org

Printed in France.Co-ordination: Keith Isherwood - IFALayout: Claudine Aholou-Pütz - IFAGraphics: Hélène Ginet - IFA


Contents

Message from the President of IFA 5

Message from the Director of the UNEP Division of Technology,Industry and Economics 6

1. Feeding the crops which feed the world 7

2. A historical perspective 10

3. A review of environmental events 133.1. The fertilizer industry and the environment 14

4. The fertilizer producers and their products 164.1. The nitrogen industry 174.2. The phosphate fertilizer industry 194.3. The potash industry 21

5. The cost of fertilizers 235.1. The cost of investment 235.2. The cost of energy and raw materials 245.3. The cost of transport and distribution 245.4. The cost of fertilizers to the farmer 25

6. The international market 276.1. International trade 276.2. International prices 29

7. The role of technological progress 307.1. Fertilizer technology 307.2. The future of fertilizer production 31

8. Will there be enough raw materials? 338.1. Energy 338.2. Phosphate rock 348.3. Potash 358.4. Sulphur 36


9. Will there be enough fertilizers? 37

10. How can the effect of fertilizers be improved? 3810.1. The need for good management 3810.2. Improving fertilizer efficiency 3910.3. The importance of balanced plant nutrition 3910.4. Fertilizer response ratios 40

11. Economics of fertilizer use 4111.1. Net return 4111.2. Value/cost ratio (VCR) 4111.3. Fertilizer/crop price ratio 42

12. Fertilizer production and the environment 4312.1. Ammonia and nitrogen fertilizer production 4312.2. Phosphate fertilizer production 4412.3. Waste disposal 45

13. Environmental aspects of fertilizer use 4713.1. Soil fertility 4713.2. Food quality and soil pollution 5013.3. Ground water pollution 5113.4. Pollution of rivers and coastal waters 5213.5. Atmospheric pollution 5213.6. Fertilizers and environmentally sustainable agriculture 53

14. Fertilizers and food supplies 5514.1. Trends in agricultural production 5514.2. The key role of fertilizers 5614.3. Fertilizer use by crops 5714.4. Organic manures 5914.5. Biological nitrogen fixation 59

15. The promotion of fertilizer use 6115.1. Spreading the message 6115.2. Supporting the messengers 6115.3. Financing fertilizer use 62

16. Government, farmers and industry - partners in food security 63

Appendix 1 : Contact organizations 65


Government, farmers and industry- partners in food securityMineral fertilizers, and hence the fertilizerindustry, constitute, and will continue toconstitute, one of the most important keys toworld food supplies - though by no means theonly one. The more nutrients are taken out ofthe soil by crops, the more have to be put back:there is no substitute for plant nutrients. And themore people there are on this planet, the morefood they will eat. For reasons relating to thevarious nutrient cycles - but especially thenitrogen cycle - there is simply not enoughorganic material to sustain soil nutrient levels,and hence soil fertility - not even if all theworld’s animal and human excreta couldsomehow be collected and recycled toagricultural land.

The fertilizer industry and its associatedtrades comprise a complex network of suppliersand buyers of numerous different raw materials,intermediates and finished products, and thiscreates a high degree of internationalinterdependence. Over the last few decades,primary production has tended to concentratenear the major sources of raw materials andfeedstocks; and, as smaller sources of thesematerials become exhausted or uneconomic, thistrend will continue, producing still greatergeopolitical interdependence and division ofresponsibilities for the prosperous survival ofplanet Earth.

The responsibility of governments forensuring food security will grow proportionatelywith the growth of populations; andgovernments in developing countries bear aspecial responsibility for promoting agricultural

Message from the President of IFA

inputs including fertilizers. They cannot do thiseffectively without the confidence of farmersand the fertilizer industry - all three parties arein a partnership, without which their objectiveswill fail.

Much remains to be done, but IFA has feltfor some time that the achievements, problemsand prospects of the mineral fertilizer industrydeserve more widespread recognition. No-oneclaims that fertilizers are a panacea, or that theycan do their work without other inputs - notablywater. But their contribution to past and futurefood supplies is so important that there ought tobe a better public appreciation of this.

It is for this reason that this book has beenproduced. It is intended as a basic introductionto fertilizers and the fertilizer industry. It is notfor the experts: it is for those who want toacquire an elementary knowledge of the natureof fertilizers, their effects, the problems ofpromoting their use, the economics of theindustry, its changing structure, its raw materialsbase, its future prospects. There is a little history,a small dose of agronomy and some indicationson production technology.

For those who wish to delve more deeplyinto particular aspects, IFA and UNEP, theUnited Nations Environment Programme, withother partners, are preparing a series of moretechnical publications on the subject of mineralfertilizers and the environment.

U.S. AwasthiManaging DirectorIndian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO)IndiaNovember 1998.


Message by the Director of the UNEP Division ofTechnology, Industry and Economics

Sustainable agriculture, and the sound use offertilizers to support it, is one of the

important development challenges facingcountries around the world. Agriculture is alsoclosely linked to environmental quality in avariety of ways, and the challenge of ourgeneration is how to feed a growing planet whilemaintaining the integrity of our ecological life-support system. We can no longer look at eachfactor in isolation, nor can we make decisionsbased on limited appreciation of theinterrelations between human activities.

To make better global decisions we need abetter overview of how the various elements fittogether. UNEP is grateful to the InternationalFertilizer Industry Association (IFA) for itsinitiative in compiling information that allows us

to see some of the important aspects offertilizers - their manufacture, distribution andtheir use. Through this book we hope that abetter understanding of the issues, and a greaterdialogue concerning the future of fertilizers andtheir environmental implications will ensue.

The book should be read in conjunction alsowith other publications concerning fertilizermanufacture and fertilizer application, so that acomplete picture can be built up of how thevarious aspects of fertilizer use in agriculture fittogether.

I congratulate IFA for its initiative inpreparing this book, and encourage readers torespond in an open and informed dialogue inorder to help the industry meet the challenge ofachieving sustainable agricultural development.

Jacqueline Aloisi de LarderelDirectorUNEP Division of Technology, Industry andEconomicsDecember 1998.


1. Feeding the crops which feed the world

All forms of life need energy, food andwater, and plants are no exception.

Without water, oxygen, carbon dioxide andnumerous mineral elements, they would die, andso would we. Of the minerals, plants needcomparatively large amounts of nitrogen,phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium andsulphur. These are called major or macro-nutrients. Numerous other elements, calledmicro-nutrients, are also needed in muchsmaller amounts. They include boron, chlorine,copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum and zinc.Leguminous crops, such as beans and peas, alsoneed small amounts of cobalt.

Rainfall supplies the water and part of theoxygen. The atmosphere supplies carbon - ascarbon dioxide - as well as the rest of theoxygen. Legumes and certain other plants canobtain part of their nitrogen from theatmosphere, but most plants must obtain almostall their nitrogen from the soil. All other plantnutrients must be obtained entirely from the soil- or from what is added to the soil by animalsand man.

If the soil cannot deliver enough of anynutrient, the growth of the plant is limited. Adeficiency of any single nutrient - even of onerequired in only very small quantities - isenough to limit growth. The most usuallimitations concern nitrogen, phosphorus andpotassium, followed by sulphur, but in acid soilsa lack of calcium can be equally important.

Where nature is still untouched - in the rainforests of central Africa and the Amazon basin,for example - a closed nutrient cycle exists. Plantgrowth is limited by the available nutrientsmaintained in this cycle, as well as by othergrowth factors such as sunlight, heat and water.

When man introduces agriculture, this cycleis broken. The soil is opened up to the dangersof leaching and erosion. Without goodmanagement, irreversible damage can be done.

A deficiency of any single nutrientis enough to limit growth.

All forms of life need energy, foodand water. Plants are no exception.


Moreover, each harvest takes more nutrientsaway from the soil.

This loss is partly offset by thedecomposition of organic matter in the soil andthe gradual weathering of soil minerals.Nutrients are thereby released in forms whichplant roots can take up. But this natural processis far too slow. Without an external input, thecapacity of the soil to supply crops withnutrients is progressively reduced. Whenagriculture replaces a forest or a meadow, thesoil can be exhausted after only a few seasons, ifit is not properly managed. In strongly acidsavannah soils which cover large parts of thetropics, a lack of calcium and other mineralssuch as sulphur, magnesium and zinc hasreduced vast areas to virtual exhaustion evenbefore the introduction of agriculture.

Until mineral fertilizers were commerciallydeveloped in the mid-19th century, the only wayof providing a crop with more nutrients than thesoil could supply was by adding human, animalor crop wastes to the land. The humanpopulation was effectively limited to what thissystem could support. It depended on the returnof waste materials to the soil. The growth ofcities during the industrial revolution led to an

increasing loss of nutrients from the naturalcycle. Mineral fertilizers introduced extranutrients into this cycle and made it possible tofeed the growing urban populations.

Mineral fertilizers contain one or more ofthree major nutrients - nitrogen, phosphorus andpotassium. They contain at least one of them.Lime, for example, is not a fertilizer: it suppliesthe soil with calcium, and often withmagnesium, but is classed as a soil conditioner.The same is true of gypsum, which is used tocarry calcium and sulphur to the soil. Sulphur isalso required in large amounts - in general cropsneed as much sulphur as phophorus.

It is inherently difficult to estimate the shareof fertilizers in increasing agricultural output: somany interactive factors are involved. But inWestern Europe, after 150 years of increasingfertilizer use, it is thought that roughly half ofthe present agricultural output may be attributedto fertilizers. This would not have been possiblewithout the contribution of improved plantvarieties and animal breeds, pesticides, modernfarm equipment and many other agriculturaladvances. Conversely, the benefits of theseimprovements would not have been realizedwithout fertilizers.

In tropical and sub-tropical countries, theFAO Fertilizer Programme organized hundredsof thousands of trials and demonstrations in

Deforestation in Asia. (Potash and Phosphate Institute)

Rainforest. Marine Park, Australia. (J. Threled,UNESCO)

1. Feeding the crops that feed the world


Nitrogen is an important component ofproteins and chlorophyll. It is taken up inlarger amounts than in the case of othernutrients and is usually most responsible foryield increases.

Phosphorus is primarily responsible forall processes in plant life in which energy isstored and utilized. It promotes root growth.It improves the quality of grain and acceleratesits ripening.

Potassium is involved in the production,transportation and accumulation of sugars inthe plant. It maintains electrical balance withinthe plant cell. It assists the hardiness of plantsand their resistance to water stress, pests anddiseases.

Sulphur is an integral component ofcertain vitamins and enzymes.

farmers’ fields throughout Africa, Asia and LatinAmerica. The results showed clearly andconsistently that, even in traditional farmingconditions, the yields of food crops can beincreased by 40 - 50%, solely by usingfertilizers. The FAO has stated that “after landand water, fertilizers are probably the mostimportant input leading to increased yields.They were responsible for some 55% of theincrease in yields in developing countriesbetween 1965 and 1976.”1

Between 1961 and 1965 the world cerealarea averaged 677 million hectares, and annualcereal production 988 million tonnes. Theaverages between 1994 and 1996 were 699million ha and 1970 million tonnes i.e. anincrease of 3% in the cereal area and 200% inthe production. Increased crop yields andintensification of agriculture, of which mineralfertilizer use is an essential component, musthave accounted for a large majority of this risein food production; a typical response ratio tofertilizers is 10 kg cereals per kg fertilizernutrients applied. It is a reasonable assumptionthat many millions of people in developingcountries owe their survival to the introductionand use of mineral fertilizers.

It has been estimated that mineral fertilizerscontribute about 40% of the nitrogen taken upby the world’s crops.2 Since crops provide about75% of all nitrogen in human proteinconsumption - either directly, or indirectlythrough animals - it follows that nearly one thirdof this protein depends on fertilizers.3

Notes1“Agriculture : Toward 2000”, (Abbreviated version ofConference document C79/24), FAO, 1981, p.66.2Smil, V., Global Population and the Nitrogen Cycle,Scientific American, July 1997.3i.e. 0.4 x 75%.

Saracollé women working in fields. Sub-Saharan Africa.

1. Feeding the crops that feed the world


2. A historical perspective

When Thomas Malthus published hisEssay on the Principle of Population two

hundred years ago, it seemed self-evident thathuman population growth would be periodicallychecked by famine, if not by pestilence and war.Despite 18th century hopes for the“perfectibility” of man and for a brave new“scientific” world, where the application ofreason would diminish the incidence of war andenhance the ability of medicine to defeatpestilence, it was impossible to see howagricultural production could be expandedsufficiently rapidly to accommodate theexponential nature of unconfined populationgrowth. But two hundred years ago, the roles ofnitrogen, phosphorus and potassium wereunknown, and the science of plant nutrition wasstill dominated by ideas which were originallyformed by the ancient Greeks.

At that time, animal manure still provided avery large majority of nutrient restitution to thesoil and, together with good cultivation andweeding, it was the key to increasing crop yields.But more animal manure meant more andbetter animals, and this, in turn, meant moregrassland and feeding stuffs, both of which madeinroads on the potential areas available forhuman food crops. There were obvious limits tothe amount of animal manure which anycountry could put on its arable land. Theselimits would not have been so important, ifsocial constraints in much of the world had notlimited the recovery and use of human wastes.

Whole civilisations have disappearedthrough diminishing soil fertility. Justus vonLiebig, to whom we owe the original vision of anagriculture sustained by chemistry, attributedthe fall of the Roman Empire largely todiminishing soil fertility. The Sumerians of

ancient Mesopotamia and the Mayans of CentralAmerica are other examples.

On the other hand, in China the peculiarnature of rice cultivation and a determination torecycle every scrap of organic waste, enabledthe lowland Chinese to support a growingpopulation for thousands of years - but at thecost of devastated uplands, widespread endemicdiseases, periodic famines, and great povertyand misery. As late as 1949, organic manuresprovided China with more than 98% ofnutrients restored to the soil, and the rice yieldof about 700 kg/ha had varied little overcenturies. Today, the proportion is less than38%, and the average rice yield is nearly6000 kg/ha.

India’s experience of famine dictates anactive, costly promotion of fertilizer use.Millions starved to death in West Bengal as

Tikal. Guatemala. (UNESCO/INGUAT - SANJOA)


recover from previous crops. But this kept morethan one third of arable land out of cultivation.As population density increased, farmersdiscovered that leguminous crops could begrown on the fallow without harming the yieldsof the subsequent cereals. This practice was notnew. In fact, it was known and recommended inRoman times, but not widely adopted in Europeuntil the 18th century. Leguminous cropsaccumulate nitrogen in their residues. Perhapseven more importantly in the pre-moderncontext, they provided a large addition to animalfeed, enabling more animals to be winteredunder shelter and greatly adding to the supplyof manure. Root crops, especially turnips, did thesame. Crop rotations of cereals - legumes - rootcrops were an essential means of maintaining aminimum of food sufficiency in much of Europe.Nevertheless, persistent food shortages causedmuch misery and played a large part intriggering the French Revolution. Throughoutthe 19th century, there was growing reliance ongrain imports from the Americas, EasternEurope and elsewhere.

In North America, for much of the 19thcentury land was so cheap and plentiful that,over vast areas, manuring was not economic.Settlers tended to prefer to deplete soil fertilityand then move on. By the 1930s, large areas of

recently as 1943. At the end of the 19thcentury, more than six million people died intwo successive famines. In the mid-1960s, asuccession of monsoon failures caused manyobservers to despair of India’s prospects. LikeMalthus, they were unable to envisage therevolutionary technologies which were eventhen emerging from agricultural research.

Without the “Green Revolution”, disasterwould undoubtedly have struck India longbefore now. By 2025, India’s population couldincrease by nearly 40% over its mid-1990slevel. Allowing for increased per capita fooddemand, it is estimated that this will necessitatean annual grain supply of about 300 milliontonnes, compared with about 190 million tonnesin 1996. Since further agricultural landexpansion is not feasible, farming intensity andaverage crop yields must be considerablyincreased, if large food imports are to beavoided.

In Europe, growing populations gradually ateinto forestland, converting it to arable andpasture. Crop yields were initially sustained bywidespread fallowing, allowing the land time to

Rice paddies. Xingping, Guagxi, China.


0

30

60

90

120

150

World fertilizer consumption

from 1960/61 to 1996/97

Million tonnes nutrients

1960/611970/71

1980/811990/91

1996/97

K2OP2O5N


the middle west of the USA were reduced tosemi-infertility and became “dust bowls”.Subsequently, with improved technologies andbetter understanding of soil processes, fertilitywas rebuilt. The Tennessee Valley Authority wasinstrumental in resolving these problems. Cropyields in these areas are now similar to naturallymore fertile soils in adjacent areas. The properapplication of fertilizers has played a large partin this restoration.

The discovery of the true nature of plantnutrition in the first half of the 19th century leddirectly to the birth of the fertilizer industry.First came the manufacture of superphosphatein the 1840s, followed by the growing use of by-product ammonium sulphate from the gasindustry, basic slag from the steel industry, andsodium nitrate from Chile. The discovery oflarge deposits of potash and phosphate rockprovided further essential mineral resources.Finally, in the first two decades of the 20thcentury, an economic means of synthesising

ammonia was developed, thereby enabling themanufacture of nitrogen fertilizers directly fromatmospheric nitrogen. For the first time inhuman history, farmers were released fromnatural constraints on plant nutrition.


Regional shares, 1960/61 & 1996/97

million tonnes nutrients 79.7

1960/61

30.0

1996/97

Developed Developing



3. A review of environmental events

The “environmental movement” is a termoften used to describe the activities of a

growing sector of society to spread anappreciation of the negative impact of humanactivities on the natural environment, and ageneral increase in activities designed to reversesuch trends. Although the roots of themovement can be traced back to the beginningsof the wilderness societies and the establishmentof national parks in the United States andEurope, it is widely acknowledged that theimportance of environmental issues inmainstream politics gained momentum duringthe 1950s and 1960s. This coincided withperiodic social unrest caused by anti-warprotests and a general mobilization of youth andstudent campaigns, particularly in the UnitedStates, coupled with a general increase inprosperity, leisure time and mobility inindustrialized countries. The role played bytelevision and the provision of education andother social services is also not to be under-estimated.

Observers also point to the publication ofRachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in 1962 as amilestone which captured the attention of manyon the road to environmental consciousness.Another was the polemic “The PopulationBomb” by Paul Ehrlich in 1968. The apparentuncontrolled exploitation of natural resources,especially fossil fuels, was promoted by pressuregroups as a shock tactic to drive public opinion,together with images of starvation anddesertification in parts of Africa and South Asia.The National Environmental Policy Act in 1969in the USA required that all government-sponsored developments be first assessed fortheir environmental impact. The Council ofEurope designated 1970 as EuropeanConservation Year, and one of the first major

international conferences to focus onenvironmental issues was the StockholmConference in 1972. The oil crisis in 1973brought energy and resource issues to the top ofthe world political and economic agenda.

During these first two or three decades ofwidespread environmental concern, attentionwas generally drawn to more localized incidents,often associated with pollution from heavyindustry, mining operations, factories, and otherhighly visible, large scale activities. It was also aperiod which spawned several high profileenvironmental campaign groups, stimulated byemotive protest campaigns to halt the activitiesof whale hunting, seal clubbing and the demiseof elephant and other large game populations inAfrica.

The 1980s saw the evolution of theenvironmental movement from itsconfrontational roots into a more maturephilosophy, which sought to promote theconcepts of responsible individual, collective andcorporate citizenship, with sustainable resourceuse while retaining economic growth anddevelopment. 1988 was designated EuropeanYear of the Environment, and several significantreports laid the foundations of modernenvironmentalism, the most important of whichwas the 1987 report of the BrundtlandCommission.

However, as it became clear that theaccumulated sum of local pollution was leadingto hitherto unexpected profound damage to theglobal environment, governments became moreinterested in addressing the wider environmentin a more coordinated fashion, and the UnitedNations provided the platform for a series ofinternational conferences which have attemptedto define a strategy to achieve “environmentallysustainable development”. For the first time,


these fora brought together representatives fromgovernments, environmental organizations andthe industrial sectors, to focus on thefundamental humanitarian issues of population,environment, agriculture and climate.

The United Nations Conference onEnvironment and Development (UNCED), the“Rio Earth Summit” of 1992, the Social Summitin 1995 and the World Food Summit in 1996have each defined objectives and outlined actionplans to alleviate poverty, feed people, protectthe environment and maintain natural resourcesfor future generations. The official product ofUNCED (the Rio Earth Summit) resides inseveral agreements, which have essentially laidthe environmental agenda for several decades,including the Framework Convention on ClimateChange, the Convention on Biological Diversity,and Agenda 21. Agenda 21 is an immensedocument of 40 chapters outlining an “actionplan” for sustainable development.

UNCED has established an ongoinginstrument under ECOSOC - the Economic andSocial Council of the United Nations and anInteragency Committee - to monitor progresstoward achieving the objectives agreed inUNCED Agenda 21. This UN Commission forSustainable Development (CSD) meets each yearto examine these chapters under sectoralthemes, which include land resources, forestsand sustainable agricultural and ruraldevelopment.

The subjects of other post-UNCEDconferences include:

� Sustainable development of small islanddeveloping states (Barbados, 1994)

� Population and development (Cairo, 1994)

� Social development (Copenhagen, 1995)

� Women (Beijing, 1995)

� Human settlements (Istanbul, 1996).

3.1. The fertilizer industryand the environmentThe fertilizer industry has a two-fold impact onthe environment, arising from the emissionsduring production and from losses as a result oftheir use.

As regards the production of fertilizers, therehas been considerable progress during the pastthirty years. The improvements in the efficiencyof energy use are indicative. Most of the energyconsumed by the global fertilizer industry,almost 93%, is used in the manufacture ofnitrogen fertilizers. G. Konshaug3b has reportedcalculations, based on today’s fertilizerproduction level of 134 million tonnes totalnutrients, comparing theoretical energyconsumption using best practices known in1968 and those of 1998.


Present energy consumption by the fertilizerindustry is estimated at 4400 GJ, some regionsbeing substantially more efficient than others.(Total world energy consumption for allpurposes is estimated at 360 000 GJ). Areduction of energy consumption in the fertilizerindustry is accompanied by an even greaterreduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Also in the case of fertilizer use, there havebeen considerable improvements in efficiency, atleast in the developed countries, as measured bycrop output obtained per unit of fertilizernutrient input. However, also in the case offertilizer use, there are considerable differencesbetween regions. From its beginnings, over 150years ago, the fertilizer industry has beenresearch-based. Farmers in developed countriesare reasonably receptive to improved practices.

BAT in 1968 5040 Gj

BAT in 1998 2743 Gj

Best AvailableTechniques, BAT

Global EnergyConsumption Per Year


But since 1960 there has been a large numberof new users in developing countries. Theadvisory task is formidable. Whereas there areabout 400 basic fertilizer producers in theworld, there are perhaps two billion farmers.

Concern about the impact of fertilizer use onthe environment is fairly recent. Up to the early1980s, few questioned their benefits and theirimportance. In the mid-1970s there was nearpanic at inter-governmental level when a globalshortage of fertilizers was feared.

But by 1990, mineral fertilizers had becomeunpopular. The speed with which public opinionturned against fertilizers took the industry bysurprise. Perhaps the development had started inthe 1970s, when the eutrophication of inlandwaters, due largely to phosphate pollution,became a recognized problem. Eventually theblame was attached mainly to phosphate-basedhousehold detergents. As a result of regulatorymeasures, which reduced the use of phosphate-based detergents and led to the installation ofwaste water treatment plants, the enrichment ofinland waters with phosphates was greatlyreduced, and pressure on fertilizers relaxed.

Two important milestones in thedevelopment of public awareness of theenvironmental impact of agriculture were thereinforcement of water quality regulations inmany countries in the 1980s. Then, in 1991, theEuropean Commission (EC) Nitrate Directivewas agreed. Implementation of these measureshas resulted in a much closer surveillance of thenitrate content of drinking water and, throughthe media, examples of high nitrate levels cameto the attention of the general public.

The occurrence of undesirableconcentrations of plant nutrients in surface andunderground waters has been accompanied inmany Western European countries by estimatesindicating that the amount of plant nutrientsapplied considerably exceeds the removal bycrops in certain regions. Most of the excessnutrients come from intensive livestockoperations, which have a waste disposalproblem, but fertilizers are also implicated.


In addition mineral fertilizers, although theyare growth enhancers, are often wronglyassociated with plant protection products whichare the subject of deep concern. At the sametime, mounting, expensive agricultural surplusesin West Europe fueled the criticisms.

In Europe, large areas of the Baltic andNorth Sea coastlines and areas of theMediterranean sometimes suffer fromeutrophication due to nitrates. In the USA,nitrates and phosphates are suspected of causingeutrophication in the Gulf of Mexico,Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere. It is unlikelythat mineral fertilizers are primarily responsiblefor this eutrophication; livestock wastes aremuch more likely culprits. But fertilizers containthe nutrients which are responsible, and aretherefore prime suspects.

The Kyoto Protocol adopted in December1997 during the Third Meeting of theConference of Parties of the United NationsFramework Commission on Climate Changeestablished an obligation on countries whichratify the Protocol to reduce the overall emissionof greenhouse gases by at least 5% below 1990levels in the commitment period 2008 to 2012.Six gases are covered, two of which areparticularly relevant to the fertilizer industry;carbon dioxide, C02, and nitrous oxide, N2O.Another gas, methane, CH4, is also included.Ruminant animals and rice paddies areimportant sources of methane but a direct linkwith mineral fertilizers has not been established.

Carbon dioxide is an unavoidable by-productof the manufacture of ammonia. Nitrous oxide isreleased during the production of nitric acid, inthe manufacture of ammonium nitrates.

The environmental aspects of fertilizerproduction and use are discussed in more detailin chapters 12 and 13.

Note3b G. Konshaug (1998) “Energy Consumption andGreenhouse Gas Emissions in Fertilizer Production”,IFA Technical Conference, Marrakech, Morocco,September/October 1998.


4. The fertilizer producers and their products

fertilizer production as a primary means ofeconomic development. Finance from lendingagencies such as the World Bank was oftenavailable on favourable terms.

All this led to a rapid growth of productioncapacity and a sharp increase in state ownership.In the 20 years from 1965 to 1984, the shareof state enterprise in the world ammoniaindustry rose from 30% to 64%. In the potashindustry, it rose from 40% to 65%, and in thephosphoric acid industry, from 10% to 46%.Similarly, by the mid-1980s, nearly 60% ofworld phosphate rock production was state-owned.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and thestrong privatization movement of the 1990sreversed this trend. In Russia and throughoutEastern Europe, the withdrawal of stateownership and the reduction or elimination ofheavy subsidization of both industry andagriculture led to a large fall in the productionand consumption of fertilizers, and the industrywas largely transferred into private or semi-private hands. Moreover, a worldwide excess ofproduction capacity, the trend towards industrialglobalization, and continuing competition fromstate-owned, or state regulated enterprises innumerous developing countries, notably Indiaand China, obliged the private sector toconcentrate its resources. This led to widespreadplant closures, numerous company mergers andacquisitions, and massive restructuring.

Mineral fertilizers are mainly produced froma small number of distinctly different rawmaterials and intermediate products. Some ofthese are also used directly as fertilizers. Themain raw materials are energy, mineralphosphate, potassium salts and sulphur.

The main source of energy is natural gas andother hydrocarbon materials. Natural gas also

The world mineral fertilizer industry isextremely heterogeneous. Among the

largest producers, are some giants of thechemical industry in all parts of the world -companies with sales measured in billions ofdollars. Producers of the main raw materials forfertilizer production form an important part ofthe petrochemical and mining industries. At theother extreme, there are many small enterpriseswhich have no primary chemical production atall: they buy all their materials to make mixturesor blends, which are often termed “compound”fertilizers.

In the 1970s and 80s, the geographicalbalance of the industry shifted strongly towardsthe former communist economies and thedeveloping countries. The communist countriespinned their faith on fertilizers to spearhead themodernization of their agriculture and improvetheir poor crop yields. The developing countriesviewed fertilizers as a strategic necessity tocombat the threat of famine in a situation ofrapid population growth. Those with abundantnatural gas, phosphate rock or potash saw

Nitrogen fertilizer production

Developing countries as % of total world

1980/81

31%

1996/97

51%

World total : 63 million tonnes nutrients

World total : 87 million tonnes nutrients


provides a large proportion of the world supplyof sulphur, since many commercial gas depositsare “sour” and the gas cannot be used until thesulphur has been removed. Phosphate rock andpotassium salts are mined in various parts of theworld. Some elemental sulphur also is mined buttoday most sulphur is recovered sulphur from oilrefineries, iron and copper pyrites and by-product sulphuric acid.

Using these raw materials, the number ofchemical process routes to the finished productsis relatively small. But at the end of theproduction chain a great diversity of finalproducts appears.

Each product has its own advantages for aparticular crop, soil and climate. It may be solidor fluid. Solids may be either chemicallyhomogeneous particles or mixtures (blends) ofdifferent products. Fluids may be salt solutionsor suspensions of solid particles. They may eventake a gaseous form, as in the case of theinjection of anhydrous ammonia directly into thesoil - a widespread practice in the USA and afew other countries.

The content of nitrogen, phosphoruspentoxide (P2O5) and potassium oxide (K2O) in afertilizer forms the main basis of its commercialvalue. It may also contain other macro-nutrientssuch as calcium, sulphur, and magnesium, aswell as micro-nutrients like boron, iron,manganese and zinc, and these also affect itsvalue.

In 1996, the world fertilizer industryproduced about 80 million tonnes4 of nitrogen,33 million tonnes of P2O5 and 23 million tonnesof K2O - a total of 136 million tonnes of primaryplant nutrients which were contained in about325 million tonnes of the various finishedproducts, with a sales value of about 50 billionUS dollars.

Nitrogen fertilizer production is based mainlyon the synthesis of ammonia from atmosphericnitrogen and the hydrogen in hydrocarbons. Inthe case of phosphate fertilizers, nearly threequarters of the world production of P2O5 is

based on phosphoric acid, which requires largeamounts of sulphur in the form of sulphuricacid, in order to convert the P2O5 in phosphaterock to a largely water soluble form. Ammonia,phosphate rock, potash and sulphur have manyother industrial uses apart from fertilizers, butthe fertilizer industry consumes most of theirproduction. Consequently, the geographicalstructure of the fertilizer industry is not onlygoverned by the location of its markets but alsoby the location of commercial sources of theseraw materials and intermediates.

4.1. The nitrogen industry

4.1.1. Ammonia

The development of technology has also playeda historic role in the development of thisgeographical structure. Thus, the earlytechnology for ammonia synthesis wasdeveloped in Western Europe, using cheapelectricity or coke-oven gas as the feedstock. Atthat time, these feedstocks were available only inthe industrialized countries. Subsequently,processes were developed involving thegasification of heavy fuel oil and the reformingof steam and naphtha. A substantial part of theammonia industry in the industrialized countriescame to be based on naphtha and fuel oil. It was

Natural gas - 1996/97

% of world

Production

FSU (mostly Russia)

USAWest E

urope

Canada, 7%

Algeria, 3

%

Reserves

33%32%

Middle East

Russia

23% 12%31%

Source: Cedigaz, 1997



this part of the industry which was suddenlyrendered much less competitive by the first oilcrisis in the mid-1970s.

Fortunately for the economics of nitrogenfertilizer use, the steam-reforming process hadalready been adapted to use natural gas. In fact,most new plants from the mid-1960s onwardswere built to use natural gas. This enabled anumber of developing countries with very low-cost gas, often associated with oil production, todevelop large ammonia industries whichcompete successfully with those in thedeveloped countries.

Similarly, the countries of Eastern Europeand the former Soviet Union (FSU) developed avery large ammonia industry between 1970 and1990, nearly all of which was based on naturalgas.

4.1.2. Nitrogen fertilizers

The first nitrogen fertilizer to be commercializedwas sodium nitrate5, mined from naturaldeposits in Chile and imported into Europe andAmerica from about 1830 onwards. Next cameammonium sulphate. This was initially obtainedas a by-product of the coke industry, which wasdeveloped to provide gas for street lighting andto serve the expanding steel industry in Europeand America in the 19th century.

By 1900, it was apparent that, without atechnology for fixing nitrogen from the

atmosphere, food supplies would be insufficientfor the growing populations of the industrializedcountries. By 1905, the idea of passing airthrough an electric arc was successfullydeveloped in Norway to produce nitric acid andcalcium nitrate. About the same time, calciumcyanamide was produced by reacting lime andcoke in an electric furnace. However, both theseprocesses were soon outdated by the discoveryof a technology to synthesize ammonia fromatmospheric nitrogen and hydrocarbons. Thiswas to revolutionize the nitrogen fertilizerindustry. The first commercial plant using thisprocess began to operate in Germany in 1913.

Initially, fertilizers took only a minor share ofthis new source of fixed nitrogen, because it wasquite costly and there were higher-valueindustrial uses. But the age-old agriculturaldependence on organic manures and therelatively rare sources of mineral nitrogencompounds had been broken.

The early nitrogen fertilizers - mainlyammonium sulphate, calcium cyanamide andcalcium nitrate - contained what, by modernstandards, were relatively low concentrations ofnitrogen (N), in the range of 15 - 21%. The nextstep was to produce more concentratedproducts. However, it was not until the 1940’sthat ammonium nitrate, with about 34% N, andcalcium ammonium nitrate, with up to 27% N,

Ammonia Unit. Netherlands. (Hydro Agri Europe)

Nitrogen fertilizer production

Others, 7%

Mexico/Caribbean, 2%Indonesia/Japan, 4%

Near East, 5%

Central Europe, 5%

China

NorthAmerica

SouthAsia

WestEurope

FormerSovietUnion

21

1311 10

%

22



became important fertilizers. By the 1960’s theyhad become the leading nitrogen fertilizers.

Today, the world’s cheapest and mostcommon nitrogen fertilizer is urea. Containing46% N, it is more economic to transport overlarge distances than less concentrated materials.It is produced by reacting ammonia and carbondioxide, thus making use of the large amounts ofby-product carbon dioxide produced byammonia plants. Consequently, urea plants arealways located together with ammonia plants.

As in many other industries, the cost offertilizer production is strongly influenced byeconomies of scale. Over the last 40 years,aided by various scientific advances, theengineering industry has been able to increasethe practical economic size of ammonia andnitrogen fertilizer plants by a factor of 5 ormore.

Thus, four powerful forces have radicallyshifted the geographical distribution ofproduction over the last 35 years:

� the growth of population in the developingcountries;

� the increased use of products like urea;

� the increased economic size of ammonia andassociated fertilizer plants;

� the large scale exploitation of cheap naturalgas in Eastern Europe, the FSU, China andnumerous countries of Asia, Latin Americaand the Near East.

The OECD countries accounted for 73% ofworld nitrogen fertilizer production in 1960 butthe same group6 had only 37% share by 1995.The former Communist countries of the SovietUnion and Central Europe had only 16% in1960, but by the mid-1980s this had risen to30%, only to fall back to 10% by the mid-1990s. The developing countries taken together(market and planned economies) had only 10%in 1960 and now have well over 50%.Population pressure and food requirements willensure that the share of the developing countrieswill continue to grow.

4.2. The phosphatefertilizer industryThe industrial technology for phosphatefertilizers preceded synthetic ammonia by atleast 70 years. It was very simple. Starting withbones as the source of phosphate, and laterusing finely ground phosphate rock, dilutesulphuric acid was added to convert thephosphorus in these materials to a water solubleform. The product was called “superphosphate”.The first sustained commercial productionbegan in England in 1843. Over the next 30years, factories sprang up all over Europe and inthe southern and eastern parts of the USA.

Like the early nitrogen fertilizers,superphosphate had a low nutrientconcentration - typically 16 - 20% P2O5. Toincrease the P2O5 content, the use of phosphoricacid in the chemical reaction was essential. Theproduction of phosphoric acid began in Europein the 1870’s, and this led immediately to themanufacture of superphosphates containing twoor three times more P2O5. These productsbecame known as enriched or triplesuperphosphates.

Ordinary superphosphate - the lessconcentrated variety - continued to dominate theworld phosphate fertilizer market until the1950’s. It still accounts for nearly 20% of the

Drag-line extracting phosphate rock. Khouribga,Morocco. (Groupe Office Chérifien des Phosphates)



P2O5 in world fertilizer production and is animportant phosphate fertilizer in regions asdiverse as China, Australia and New Zealand. Inparticular, its popularity in numerous developingcountries is due to its simplicity of production,its low plant investment cost and, not least, itssulphur content.

The importance of triple superphosphate wasslow to develop, emerging as a major fertilizeronly in the 1930’s. The large scale developmentof the phosphoric acid industry did not occuruntil after 1950.

Meanwhile, back in the 1880’s, thedevelopment of the basic steel making processhad given rise to large amounts of by-productslag - basic slag, as it was called. Certain sourcesof iron ore contain significant amounts ofphosphorus which, if transferred into therefinery product, harm the quality of the metal.The basic steel process left this phosphorus inthe slag; and this often contained almost asmuch phosphorus as ordinary superphosphate,although in a less soluble form. Until oxygensteel making processes gradually strangled thesupply of basic slag, this by-product provided asubstantial part of Europe’s phosphate fertilizersupply.

Processes involving the reaction of phosphaterock with nitric acid, instead of sulphuric acid,

also gained popularity, particularly in Europe.The resulting products are known asnitrophosphates.

In America, the phosphate fertilizer industryalso developed from many small, widelydispersed superphosphate producers. Gradually,with the large scale development of phosphatedeposits in Florida and, more recently in NorthCarolina, and with improvements in phosphoricacid technology, the industry concentrated inthese two states. Since triple superphosphatecontains over 40% more P

2O5 than phosphaterock, its shipment is more economic than that ofphosphate rock. This, together with the miningof large, economical sulphur deposits in the USGulf area, enabled the American phosphoricacid industry to compete successfully withordinary superphosphate manufacturers overlarge distances and led to a growing exporttrade.

The development of the ammoniumphosphate industry in the 1960’s assisted thisprocess. The product of the reaction of ammoniaand phosphoric acid had been known longbefore the 1960’s, but it was not until then thatcircumstances became favourable for its largescale production and use. Althoughsuperphosphates and nitrophosphates continueto be very important in several large nationaland regional markets and have a substantialshare of world trade, ammonium phosphates arenow the leading form of phosphate fertilizer.

Economic access to phosphate rock andsome form of sulphur has always governed thegeographical concentration of the phosphatefertilizer industry. In the 19th century, theindustrial revolution provided a ready supply ofsulphuric acid. This, together with thedevelopment of the rich phosphate deposits ofFlorida, South Carolina and what was thenFrench North Africa, provided the main basis forthe superphosphate industry in Europe andAmerica.

Many phosphate deposits have beendiscovered over the past 50 years. In only the

Phosphate production - 1997

% of world

Morocco

China

& Tunisia

FSUMorocco

USA

USA

Phosphate rock

Phosphoric acid

Middle East

Latin Americ

a

West Europe

17% 15%32%

43% 8%15%



last decade, China has emerged as the thirdlargest producing nation. Indeed, only threecountries - USA, China and Morocco - accountfor almost two thirds of the world supply ofphosphate rock. Morocco alone accounts for onethird of international trade in phosphate rock.

These same three countries also account forover half of the world production of primaryprocessed phosphate fertilizer materials.Although the share of Morocco in the latter isstill small, this country accounts for no less than40% of world trade in phosphoric acid. Severalother newly industrializing countries are alsomajor participants in world trade in processedphosphate fertilizer materials.

The concentration of phosphate rock andsulphur resources in comparatively fewcountries has lessened the regional shift inphosphate fertilizer production. Whilst thediscovery of low cost natural gas in numerousdeveloping economies dispersed nitrogenproduction to countries which, untilcomparatively recently, had little or none at all,phosphate rock and sulphur production capacityhas largely remained concentrated in countrieswhich were already the main suppliers 25 yearsago. Notable exceptions are China for phosphate,and certain Middle Eastern oil and gasproducers for sulphur.

The developed market economies’ share ofworld phosphate fertilizer production hasdeclined over the last 35 years from 85% in

1960 to 45% in the mid-1990s. The share ofNorth America in the supply of the essential rawmaterials - phosphate rock and sulphur - hasensured that this share remains higher than inthe case of nitrogen. The countries of the FSU,which had nearly a quarter of world phosphatefertilizer production7 in the mid-1980s, saw thisshare decline dramatically to 8% by the mid-1990s. The developing countries’ share hasrisen from 7% in 1960 to 46% in 1995, i.e.roughly the same as the developed marketeconomies (not including the FSU).

4.3. The potash industryBefore the mid-19th century, the agriculturalneed for potassium was well recognized. Woodash was the chief source. In 1859, a deposit ofpotash salts at Stassfurt in Germany wasdiscovered, and the first potash mine wasopened there in 1862. This and other Germandeposits dominated the potash market for 75years.

Low-grade, unrefined ores were the firstproducts. None contained more than 25% K2O.The development of refining methods led tohigher concentration. Potassium chloride, with60 - 62% K2O, is now the main product.

The chloride form of potassium, thoughaccounting for an overwhelming share of thepotash market, is not so acceptable for certain

The manufacture of every tonne of P2O5

in phosphoric acid requires nearly a tonne ofsulphur in some form or other. Only 3countries - USA, Canada and China - accountfor half of world sulphur production in allforms. The major traded form of sulphur -brimstone, or elemental sulphur - accountsfor two thirds of total sulphur production,and the USA and Canada account for half ofworld brimstone production. Canada takesnearly 40% of the world brimstone trade.


Potash mining. Esterhazy, Saskatchewan Facility,Canada. (Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc.)


crops as the sulphate or nitrate forms, but thelatter are more costly and are used only inparticular circumstances.

Large potash deposits were eventually foundin other countries. Production started in Francein 1910, in Spain in 1925, in the former SovietUnion and USA around 1930, in Canada in1960, in Italy in 1964 and in the UK in 1974.Italy has ceased production, and reserves arelow in France and Spain. Belarus and Russia are

now large producers. Israel developed a largepotash recovery operation from the brine of theDead Sea in the 1960s8, and Jordan followedsuit in 1982. A similar operation exists in theUSA at the Great Salt Lake, Utah. In LatinAmerica, Brazil and Chile have small potashindustries.

Twelve countries account for over 99% ofworld potash production. The developingcountries have only 6-7% of this production,and over half of this comes from Jordan. Almostall have to import their entire requirements.

Notes4tonnes refer to metric tonnes throughout thispublication.5unless one counts saltpetre, which was occasionallyused agriculturally from at least biblical timesonwards, but which was far too expensive for suchuse, once it was used to make gunpowder.6i.e. developed countries excluding the formerCommunist countries for the sake of statisticalcomparability.7including ground phosphate rock for directapplication.8The first potash refinery at the Dead Sea was built in1940.

Potash fertilizer production - 1997

Canada

Russia & Belarus

Israel &Jordan

West Europe

%

36

2621

9



5. The cost of fertilizers

the mid-1980s, an average selling price ofaround US$ 150/tonne corresponded to areturn in the range of 0 - 10%, whereas in themid-1990s, the same price gave a return in therange of 10 - 20% - a change which is largelyattributable to a general decrease in the cost ofenergy and raw materials. The selling price isparticularly variable.

5.1. The cost of investmentThe cost of investment in a modern, large-scaleprimary fertilizer complex runs into hundreds ofmillions of dollars. Moreover, this cost variessignificantly from site to site. For the same typeand size of plant, the cost at a remote,undeveloped site in a developing country couldbe double that at a developed site in anindustrialized country. It can also varyconsiderably according to the chosen processand the workloads of contractors and equipmentvendors. In the case of ammonia, the choice offeedstock is also critical. For example, if, forreasons of availability, coal is chosen, the plantinvestment cost could easily be twice the cost ofa similar plant based on natural gas.

The cost of infrastructure is a major factor.This infrastructure will typically include suchfeatures as roads, port facilities, rail access,housing, social services and local industries tosupply equipment and services. However, sincethis infrastructure often serves not only thefertilizer plant but the development of the wholelocal economy, state subsidization is oftenjustified.

Any lack of local experience, skills andfacilities at a new construction site also tends tomake plant construction inherently more costly.Under such circumstances, plants sometimes failto achieve the consistently high operating rates

On the demand side there is the relationshipbetween fertilizers and food supplies. Even

in highly developed countries, the price of foodis one of the most sensitive political issues. It isall the more so in countries where food takesover half of the household income.

On the supply side, fertilizer materials passalong a chain from the raw materials producersthrough the chemical processors and distributorsto the farmers. Within this chain of enterprisesthere are also various transporters and otherintermediaries. At least one of the links in thechain - and probably several - is likely to beinternational. All these enterprises must perceivea worthwhile financial profit from theirinvolvement, unless their financial performanceis managed or underwritten by governments forpolitical reasons.

The profitability of the fertilizer industrydepends on a combination of circumstances, allof which can vary considerably both in time andplace, viz. the cost of investment, the cost ofenergy and raw materials, the cost oftransportation, marketing and distribution, andthe selling price of the products. In America in

Investment costs depend on the infrastructure, sitelocation, etc. Potash plant and port, Canada. (PotashCorp. of Saskatchewan Inc.)


which are all the more important when thecapital investment is comparatively large. Lowoperating rates can have a drastic effect onprofitability.

Notwithstanting, numerous developingcountries now have large, long establishedfertilizer industries at sites with developedinfrastructures, and some have the advantage ofvery low energy and raw materials costs,abundant reserves, and proximity to growingmarkets. As investment costs at such locationsapproach those in developed countries, they arelikely to capture the bulk of future investment inthe industry.

5.2. The cost of energy andraw materialsWhere investment costs are high, competitiveproduction requires this disadvantage to beoffset by lower costs for other inputs - energy,raw materials, transport and marketing.

The cost of energy, mainly in the form ofnatural gas, is of critical importance in themanufacture of ammonia and nitrogenfertilizers. The cost of natural gas is by far themost important element in determining the costof ammonia, which in turn dictates the cost ofnitrogen fertilizers. Between 1990 and 1996, inthe USA the cost of gas accounted, on average,for two thirds of the total production cost ofammonia.

In the case of phosphate fertilizers, energytakes only a minor share of the production cost.Triple superphosphate, TSP, 45% P2O5, isproduced by acidulating phosphate rock withphosphoric acid, which in turn is produced bythe acidulation of phosphate rock with sulphuricacid. To produce a tonne of TSP, about 1.3 to1.6 tonnes of phosphate rock is requireddepending on the grade of rock. A tonne of TSPrequires about 0.35 tonnes of phosphoric acid(100%). Phosphoric acid requires nearly a ton ofsulphur for each tonne of P2O5 produced.Consequently, the production cost of TSPdepends largely on the cost of phosphate rock

and sulphur. Apart from the variability of themarket prices for phosphate rock and sulphur,local circumstances are also very variable. In thecase of sulphur, for example, many phosphatefertilizer manufacturers can use by-productsulphuric acid from other processes, at a veryeconomic cost.

In short, the circumstances affecting theproduction cost of any fertilizer can vary widelyfrom location to location, even within the samecountry.

5.3. The cost of transportand distributionThe geological, technical and economic factorswhich have led to the concentration ofproduction in larger units and in particular areashave also caused world trade to grow faster thanproduction. The growth of fertilizer demand inAfrica, Asia and Latin America has alsostimulated world trade. Large volumes of bulkymaterials have to be transported internationally,often from one side of the world to the other.

It is difficult to be precise about the relativeimportance of transport costs. Once again,circumstances differ enormously. Compare thecase of a land-locked country in the middle ofAfrica with no local production of its own and aEuropean country, for example, where themajority of farmers are never far away from alocal source. In West Europe it has been

Handling of fertilizers. Brazil. (Adubos Trevo S.A.)



estimated that logistical costs, includinghandling, transport and storage, represent about20% of the price paid for fertilizer by thefarmer. A 1992 case study in Ghana, withrelatively favourable communications comparedwith many other African countries, showed thatthe distribution cost accounted for 50% of theretail price.

Once the fertilizer is ready to be deliveredinto the domestic marketing system, several costelements other than transport affect its deliveredcost. These include packaging, storage, credit,sales promotion and the margins for the dealersand distributors.

5.4. The cost of fertilizers tothe farmerIn many developing countries the need topromote the efficiency of local agriculture is astrong and permanent part of government policy.In developed countries, the problem ofagricultural surpluses may seem as if the pursuitof agricultural efficiency has been too successful.But surplus production is not necessarily theresult of agricultural efficiency. Surplusproduction is a matter of costs and prices - and,above all, of government agricultural supportpolicies. Agricultural efficiency is certainlyconcerned with reducing costs, but also withreducing the need to subsidize the farmer’sstandard of living, with protecting the ruralenvironment and with reducing the cost of food

to the consumer. The efficient use of fertilizershas served - and will continue to serve - all theseobjectives.

In developing countries, the problem israrely one of surplus. The governments of mostof these countries are conscious of theimportance of their local agriculture. Where thecost of fertilizer would normally be too high fortheir farmers, many of these governmentsintroduced fertilizer price and credit subsidies,sometimes in addition to subsidizing theirdomestic fertilizer production.

In the 1980s, the rising fertilizer subsidyburden in a number of countries causedconsiderable concern, and most Asian countrieshave subsequently tried to reduce or eliminatesome fertilizer subsidies. They have found thatthe political price of such action is high,especially where imports must be financed withdepreciating currencies. In India, the fertilizersubsidy increased from US$ 418 million in1981/82 to US$ 2446 million in 1990/91, andsubsequently reduced to about US$ 2000million as certain subsidies were curtailed. Suchis the importance of fertilizers to India. It has tobe taken into account that although today nodeveloped country subsidizes fertilizers directly,most of them subsidize agriculture itself veryheavily.

What counts with the farmer is the expectedreturn from his investment. The price of

At the end of the chain stand the farmers alone.

Fertilizers are often stored in bulk. Thailand. (ThaiCentral Chemical Public Company Ltd)



fertilizer can be high if the price obtained forthe produce is also high. It is the ratio betweenthe two which is important, together with theamount by which the fertilizer increases theyield of the crop. In most countries of Africa,Asia and Latin America, there is little scope forincreasing real agricultural prices. Thus, areduction of fertilizer subsidies can have anadverse effect on fertilizer use if not counter-balanced by some other factor. This represents areal challenge for the agricultural marketing,

credit and extension services in the countriesconcerned.

Regrettably, not all governments havesupported the development of their agriculturalproductivity with the same commitment as isvisible in the larger countries of Asia and LatinAmerica. In some countries, a bias in favour ofurban interests has sometimes resulted indistortions which tend to depress localagriculture and aggravate national economicdifficulties in the longer term.



6. The international market

6.1. International tradeThe first half of the 1990s was marked by asevere decline in global fertilizer demand. From143 million tonnes of nutrients in 1989/90,consumption had fallen to 120 million tonnes by1993/94, but has subsequently recovered toabout 130 million tonnes in 1996/97. Theprincipal reason for this decline was the collapseof the former Soviet Union and its client regimesin Central Europe. In these two regions, fertilizeruse fell by more than two thirds, taking23 million tonnes of nutrients out of globaldemand and thus accounting for the entireworld decline. In addition, agricultural surplusesand lower crop prices in Western Europeresulted in a fall of almost 5 million tonnes ofnutrients in this region over the same period. Inthe global context, this was offset by thecontinuing rise of consumption in the developingworld.

In the latter category, there are over 70countries, mainly in Africa, Central America andthe Caribbean. Although they account for only5% of the developing countries’ fertilizer use,they include some of the poorest countries ofthe world, and some of those with the mostprecarious situation regarding food security.

Since the developing countries are majorfertilizer importers, the international fertilizertrade suffered much less than globalconsumption from the situation in Europe andthe former Soviet Union. Compared with the16% fall in consumption, trade in fertilizers fellby only 4-5%, and the processed phosphatetrade actually increased.9

Altogether, an estimated 160 - 180 milliontonnes of fertilizers and their intermediates andraw materials are transported internationallyevery year.10 Excluding raw materials andintermediates from this figure, the finishedfertilizer trade represents over 40% of worldfertilizer nutrient consumption, compared withabout 30% in the mid-1980s. This adds up to a

The developing countries are all toooften treated as a single group. This can bequite misleading. In the context of theinternational fertilizer market. Three maingroups of countries should be distinguished:

� those with large domestic markets andgrowing fertilizer industries. These includeBrazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico,Pakistan and several others.

� those with small domestic markets andgrowing fertilizer industries based on localraw materials and aimed at the exportmarket. These include numerous Arabcountries of the Middle East and NorthAfrica, as well as Senegal and Trinidad andothers.

� those with small domestic markets, withoutlocally exploited raw materials, unable tojustify a primary fertilizer industry, andentirely dependent on imports.

Marine Terminal. Ceyhan, Turkey. (Toros Fertilizer &Chemical Ind. Co., Inc.)


very large bill for freight. But this is only part ofthe picture, since the domestic cost oftransporting and distributing fertilizer materialswithin each country is also a significant part ofthe cost of getting fertilizers to the farmer.

The world fertilizer trade has expandeddramatically over the past 25 years. In thedecade from 1970 to 1980, exports nearlydoubled from 19 to 37 million tonnes ofnutrients. In the same period, the global bill forexports of manufactured fertilizers rose fromUS$ 1.4 billion to US$ 11.1 billion. By 1990,these figures had reached 49 million tonnes ofnutrients, valued at US$ 12.3 billions. Tradewith and between developing countries was amotor force in this increase. In 1970, theyaccounted for only 35% of this trade. By 1990,they took 47%, and the figure is now well over50%. Moreover, their processed fertilizerexports, amounting to only 6% of world trade in1970, now account for about 17%.

Twenty years ago the main form of tradedP2O5 was phosphate rock, which was processedinto superphosphate and compound fertilizerspredominantly in the developed world. Duringthis period, however, the role of phosphate rockas an export carrier of P2O5 has declined sharplyas vertically integrated industries have beendeveloped at or close to the sites of rock mines.The US industry, for example, has virtuallyceased to export phosphate rock, preferring toconcentrate on downstream processing. TheUSA accounts for almost two thirds of worldexports of ammonium phosphate.

In the case of nitrogen, it is necessary todistinguish between trade in ammonia and tradein nitrogen fertilizers. Most traded ammonia isused to manufacture fertilizers but considerablequantities are used to produce industrialchemicals. The trade in finished nitrogenfertilizers is primarily in the form of urea, andsecondly in the form of the ammonium nitrates.Russia and some Central European countries aremajor suppliers of these products, havingconsiderable surplus capacity since theirdomestic markets collapsed. Russia has the

Urea exports - 1997

main movements excluding intra-regional trade

Central Europe / Former Soviet Union Near East

CHINA

INDIA

Diammonium phosphate exports 1997main movements excluding intra-regional trade

USA Morocco / Tunisia

W EUR

ASIA

Potash exports - 1997

North America Former Soviet Union Near East

ASIA



dollar prices are then converted to the localcurrencies of importing countries - which havealso shown major exchange fluctuations overthis period - it becomes obvious that there is nosuch thing as a representative international pricefor any fertilizer for more than a very briefperiod.

Fluctuations in world market prices can havea disconcerting and damaging effect on thegrowth of fertilizer use in the important marketsof the developing countries. Governmentbudgets for fertilizer imports and subsidies canbe caught off-balance. Official reactions areoften too slow to prevent local supply shortages.Unless such fluctuations are cushioned at thelocal retail level, poor farmers, new to theexperience of using fertilizers, can easily becomediscouraged.

Nevertheless, real situations of shortage havebeen historically rare in the fertilizer trade.Over-supply and severe competition has beentypical of the last 20 years. In such a situation,the essential role of private exporters can easilybe overlooked. Since the private sector dependsentirely on its financial performance, it is quickto adjust production to balance supply anddemand. Such adjustments have resulted in theclosure and idling of millions of tons of fertilizerproduction capacity in the developed marketeconomies.

Notes9 as measured in nutrients and not including trade inraw materials and intermediates.10 Of this, fertilizers and phosphate rock account forabout 120 million metric tonnes of solid maritimetrade.

advantage also of large reserves of natural gas.Certain countries of the Arabian Gulf and theCaribbean are also major exporters, thanks totheir plentiful gas supplies.

Potash is exported from a small number ofcountries with a highly developed potash miningindustry. Canada, Russia and Belarus, WestEurope, Israel and Jordan, in that order, accountfor almost all the world exports. In West Europe,the main exporter is Germany, the Frenchdeposits being near exhaustion.

6.2. International pricesGenerally the fertilizer industry attempts tominimize price fluctuations in domestic marketssince large price variations can have lastingadverse effects. In some countries, thegovernment controls fertilizer prices, or takescontrol if prices rise too far. There is no suchcontrol in the international market. This causesinternational price volatility of much greaterdimensions than in domestic markets.Fortunately for importers, international fertilizerprices have generally been lower than thedomestic prices in the exporting countries.Nevertheless, developing countries whichdepend on this international market for part orall of their fertilizer supplies are particularlysensitive to the considerable fluctuations whichhave occurred.

Fertilizers are traded internationally at priceswhich are continually fluctuating, depending onavailability, maritime freight rates and distancefrom markets. For example, between 1994 and1998, urea was traded within a range varyingfrom less than US$ 100/tonne free on board(fob) to more than US$ 220/tonne fob. When



7. The role of technological progress

and a solid phase is the subject of manyprocesses involving different types of equipment.

For some materials, alternatives togranulation include prilling and compacting. Forexample, much of the world’s urea production isprilled. Prilling involves forcing molten dropletsthrough shower-like nozzles or centrifuges at thetop of high towers, so that the droplets solidifyas they fall down the tower through an up-flowing stream of cold air.

With granulation, the producer may havegreater control over the size of the agglomeratedparticles than with the prilling process. This isimportant for two reasons:

� the rate of release of nutrients into the soil ispartly governed by the size of the granules;

� the mixing or bulk blending of differentfertilizer products requires similar particlesizes - otherwise, during handling,transportation and spreading, the differentproducts tend to become segregated again,causing unbalanced, inefficient nutrientapplication.

The granulation of fertilizers has permittedlarge savings in their packaging, handling,transport and application, and improvements inthe precision of spreading them on the fields. Ithas made possible the transport of fertilizers inbulk to the end-user or to bagging stations in theconsuming area.

Compaction of fertilizer materials into smallpellets or briquettes can also be used to obtainproducts with improved physical properties forbulk blending or direct use.

The use of fluid fertilizers represents anothertechnological innovation. The products varyfrom anhydrous ammonia to multi-nutrientsuspensions.

7.1. Fertilizer technologyWorld fertilizer production has increased byover 60 times in the course of the 20th century.In the last 35 years alone, it has increased by4 times to reach 136 million tonnes of nutrients.This corresponds to about 325 million tonnes offinished products. Such an expansion wouldhave been impossible without a stream oftechnological progress. Consider, for example,the apparently simple idea of producingfertilizers in the form of granules. The earlyfertilizer products were powders. They tended tosolidify when left in a damp atmosphere. Theywere difficult and unpleasant to handle. Theycould not be spread satisfactorily from machines.It would be difficult to imagine the presentmaritime system shipping tens of millions of tonsof such materials around the world. It would beequally difficult to imagine the modern farmeraccepting them.

Yet the technology of forming granules is notso simple. It has evolved considerably over thelast 50 years. It is still the subject of substantialresearch and development. The action of“growing” granules by the agglomeration andlayering of particles in the presence of a liquid

Fertilizer granules Prills Compactates


A major breakthrough for the nitrogenfertilizer industry was the development of therotating compressor. In ammonia production,large volumes of air and gas have to bepressurized. The growth of large modernammonia plants, bringing substantial economiesof scale, would not have been possible with theold reciprocating compressors.

Similarly, the development of automation,computerization and remote control technologyhas revolutionized production methods,especially in the fields of safety, environmentalstandards and quality control.

A major thrust of recent technical researchin the nitrogen industry has been the effort toreduce energy consumption. An Americanindustry survey in 1983 showed an averageenergy consumption of 42 MM (million) BTUs(British thermal units) per tonne of ammoniaproduced. By 1996, this figure was still about38 MM BTUs, reflecting a high average age ofthe surveyed plants and the limits of retrofittingthem with new technology. New plants builttoday with the best available technology canoperate on about 30 MM BTUs, althoughadditional energy consumption is required tomeet rising environmental standards foremissions to air and water.

In phosphoric acid manufacture, the mainemphasis of research has been concerned withimproving the concentration of the product acid,limiting the cost of evaporation, and maximizingthe yield from the raw materials. Improvementsin the control of the chemical reaction havesteadily raised the acid concentration, beforeevaporation, from 20 - 23% in the early days ofthe industry to 45 - 50% for the modern“hemihydrate” process. Commercial phosphoricacid is concentrated to 52 - 54%.

The quality of the phosphate rock used inphosphoric acid manufacture is a critical factor.In addition to its phosphorus content, phosphaterock contains elements which are regarded asimpurities and which greatly complicate the lifeof the phosphoric acid production engineer.Consequently, plants are usually “tailored” for aspecific source and grade of rock. Changing thissource and grade is costly in terms of the timetaken to re-adjust the process. A different sourceof rock may often necessitate additionalequipment. Even the same source of rock canfluctuate in quality. In general, however, theproblems associated with the diversity ofphosphate rock qualities is one of the factorsworking in favour of the trend for newphosphoric acid plants to be situated at or nearthe location of a phosphate rock mine.

Feeding the phosphoric acid reactor with phosphaterock. Darou, Sénégal. (Industries Chimiques duSénégal)

Reduction of energy consumption

Norsk Hydro ~ Emissions

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 19950

20

40

60

80

100

Relative scale '70 = 100

N discharge to water

N emission to air

P discharge to water

Source : Ole H. Lie, Norsk Hydro, TFI, September 1998



7.2. The future of fertilizerproductionThe major fertilizer products in use today areexpected to continue to be the most important inthe foreseeable future. No revolutionary newproducts are expected to take their place. Morehighly concentrated products are technicallypossible, but their commercial development islikely to be uneconomic, except in specialcircumstances.

The technical development of the fertilizerindustry will concentrate on increasingefficiency in the production of the existingproducts, as well as in their agricultural use. Theimportance of the cost of energy will continue todrive research towards processes involving lessenergy, or more economic forms of it. Forexample, coal gasification technology has madeimportant progress in recent years, and in someareas, local price relationships between coal andnatural gas may develop to the benefit of coal asthe energy source for ammonia production.However, steam reforming with natural gas willremain at the core of the ammonia industry.

The bulk of world phosphate fertilizermaterials will continue to be based on thereaction of phosphate rock with sulphuric acid.The supply of sulphur has historically tended tobe quite cyclical, but a substantial world surplusis expected to persist into the next century.

Potash will continue to be mainly supplied inthe chloride form by conventional dry miningtechniques, though special circumstances maydictate solution mining in a few locations.

Higher agronomic efficiency in the use ofexisting products is a principal target of research.For example, with particular soils and climaticconditions and poor or inappropriate fertilizerapplication, nitrogen can be volatilized into theatmosphere or leached into the subsoil. Mucheffort has been devoted to producing so-called“controlled-release” nitrogen fertilizers. So farthe economics have generally been

unfavourable. Consequently, their use has beenlimited to high value crops, horticulture, andrecreational facilities, and they account for lessthan 0.2% of the global mineral fertilizermarket.

Similarly, extensive research is being devotedto the development of suitable economicmethods and equipment for applying fertilizersso that nitrogen losses are minimized.Nitrification and urease inhibitors have beenshown to reduce the nitrogen fertilizerrequirement for a given crop yield by up to20%, but their use is not yet widespread andmay depend on the future restriction of nitrogenuse for environmental reasons.

Large modern fertilizer complexes requiresophisticated management and a fundamentalunderstanding of the unit processes involved.Process efficiency is a function of the operationalstability of the plant. With increasing capitalintensity, the cost of downtime becomescritically important. Most new investment willcontinue to be in Africa, Asia and Latin Americawhere the capital investment per tonne ofproduct is often higher than in Europe andNorth America. It is therefore all the moreimportant for these regions to develop anadequate body of highly knowledgeable,experienced engineers and skilled labour.

Certain developing countries are successfullyinvesting in their own fertilizer productionresearch and development, and their ownengineering capabilities. Nevertheless, for thetime being, they continue to depend heavily onthe strength of research and engineering in thedeveloped market economies. Though generallyconstrained by low capital returns over manyyears, continuing investment in the developmentof technology holds the promise of furtherimprovement in the key parameters affecting theeconomics of fertilizer production, particularly inthe fields of energy and raw materials efficiency,capital cost reliability, environmental control andease of plant operation.



8. Will there be enough raw materials?

This compares with 55 years in 1983, reflectingthe discovery of new deposits in the interveningyears, as well as upward revision of the size ofexisting deposits.

Processes for ammonia production can use awide range of energy sources. Thus, even whenoil and gas supplies eventually dwindle, verylarge reserves of coal are likely to remain, albeitwith costly problems of pollution controloverhanging their use. Many scientists expectthat, before the exhaustion of such mineralsources of energy, the development of economicenergy from a variety of renewable naturalsources will provide a safe, permanent solutionto this problem. However, the use of natural gasis accelerating rapidly, mainly because ofenvironmental pressures which work againstother fossil fuels. The diagram above shows thatnatural gas is expected to account for about onethird of global energy use in 2020, comparedwith only one fifth in the mid-1990s.

The entire fertilizer industry uses less than2% of world energy consumption, and this isoverwhelmingly concentrated in the production

The main fertilizer raw materials - asindicated earlier - are energy, phosphate

rock, sulphur and potassium salts. In thecontinuing debate on sustainability, the possibleexhaustion of essential minerals is of centralconcern. Are we in danger of exhausting thesupply of raw materials for the fertilizer industryor of compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs?

8.1. EnergyThe high-temperature catalytic synthesis ofammonia from air and a source of hydrocarbonsis by far the main consumer of energy in thefertilizer industry. Natural gas is the preferredfeedstock. The diagram below shows oneestimate of the size of regional gas reserves in1995 in terms of years of production at 1995production rates. Such estimates are subject tomany qualifications, particularly internationaldifferences in reporting criteria; but in thepicture presented below, total world gas reservesin 1995 amounted to 66 years of production.

Life of natural gas reserves at 1995rates of production

Years0 50 100 150 200 250 300

North America

Source : BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 1996

West Asia

Africa

China

FSU

Latin America

East Asia

Eastern Europe

Western Europe

Oceania

World natural gas consumption

Source : US Energy Information - EIA medium projection to 2020

1970 1995 2000 20200

50

100

150

200

0

10

20

30

40

Quadrillon BTU %

% of total energy use


Mineral Reserves and Resources

A reserve is usually defined as a mineraldeposit of established extension that is - orcould be - profitably mined under prevailingcosts, market prices and technology.

A resource is considered to be a depositof less well defined size which is not noweconomically exploitable but which couldpotentially become so, if there was asufficiently favourable change in costs, pricesor technology.

of ammonia. The ammonia industry used about5% of natural gas consumption in the mid-1990s - a figure which is expected to diminishsubstantially in coming years. Consequently, ithas little or no influence on world energy prices,and only rarely on local energy prices.

8.2. Phosphate rockMineral phosphates arecomposed chiefly of one ormore complex fluorine-containing calcium phosphates.They are insoluble in waterbut readily soluble in diluteacids. They originate eitherfrom volcanic action along zones of weakness inthe earth’s crust, or from sedimentary depositson the ocean bed, usually in shallow coastalareas which subsequently became land.Sedimentary deposits account for the bulk ofcommercial phosphate production.

Geological evolution is too slow to replenishthe amounts being mined, and commercialmining always extracts the richer ore first. Theworld average P2O5 content of phosphate rock in1975 was about 32.5%, whilst today it hasfallen to 31%. We can expect a continuing,gradual diminution in the average quality of themined ore. This is compensated by moreefficient technology for enriching the ore tomeet commercial processing standards. At the

same time, processing technology is findingeconomic ways of using lower-grade ores.

In the case of a mineral with such a diversityof grades, compositions and locations asphosphate rock, the quantitative evaluation ofreserves and resources is necessarily subjectiveand variable over time. Firstly, geologists are notunanimous on what methods and definitions touse for this evaluation. Secondly, many depositsare only partially explored, and new discoverieschange the picture. Thirdly, the size of reservesdepends on prevailing costs and prices.

In 1998, the US Geological Survey estimatedthat world phosphate rock reserves amounted toabout 11 billion tonnes, with a larger reservebase of about 33 billion tonnes. The heavyconcentration of these reserves in just onecountry - Morocco - is illustrated in the diagrambelow.

At the present rate of mining, worldphosphate reserves would last for about80 years and the reserve base for about 240years. However, the respective figures forMorocco are 280 and 1000 years, and thefigures for the rest of the world are only 45 and100 years. Consequently, in the longer term,there will be an increasing reliance on Morocco,which currently accounts for only 15% of worldproduction. It is not difficult to imagine that, indue course, the expansion of production in

World phosphate rock reserves

Source : US Geological Survey, 1998

World

Morocco

USA

Others

0 10 20 30 40Billions of tonnes of rock product

ReservesReserve base



Morocco which would be required to offsetdiminishing deposits in other countries and meeta growing world demand, would inevitablycreate serious logistic and environmentalproblems, not to mention an eventual monopoly,unless major new sources emerge in themeantime.

On the other hand, as the need arises, adoubling or trebling of the present real price ofphosphate would produce a very large increasein the economic reserves of numerous countriesand open the possibility of mining the largephosphate resources identified on thecontinental shelves and on seamounts in theAtlantic and Pacific Oceans. Perhaps within thenext century the problem of virtually limitlesslow cost renewable energy may be solved. Inthis case, with changing technology, it maybecome possible to exploit the very largeidentified resources which presently fall outsidethe reserve base11 - or even to “mine” sea waterfor its phosphorus and other minerals.

8.3. PotashPotassium salts occuras undergrounddeposits or in saltlakes. Commerciallyeconomic sources areless widely distributedthan in the case of phosphate. In fact, botheconomic reserves and resources are heavilyconcentrated in two regions - North Americaand the former Soviet Union. As shown in thediagram on the right, these regions presentlyhave 85% of known economic reserves, and asimilar share of the reserve base.

Although potash, like phosphate, is a non-renewable resource, the known reserves andresources are much larger than for phosphate.At mid-1990s rates of production, world potashreserves would last for 320 years, and thereserve base offers 650 years. At 250 billiontonnes of K2O, potential world potash resourcesare truly vast.12

Nevertheless, over the next 50 years, somepotash producers will be obliged to mine lowergrade ores, deeper layers or more distantregions. New potash deposits are still beingfound and new producers may appear; theworld food situation should not be endangeredby a lack of potash. But, as for phosphate, onecountry - Canada - has well over 50% of worldreserves and of the reserve base and would, indue course, be in a commanding position,without the discovery of further major deposits.

World potash reserves

Source : US Geological Survey, 1998

Billions of tonnes of K2O

World

North America

FSU

Developing countries

Western Europe

Other developed

0 3 6 9 12 15 18



Potash mining. (Kali & Salz)


8.4. SulphurSulphur is found in volcanic rocks, in associationwith salt domes, in metal ores and as sulphidesassociated with oil and coal. Sulphur resourcesare very large, but only a small fraction iseconomically exploitable. Gypsum and anhydriteconstitute a large part of resources, and they arenot economically exploitable for their sulphurcontent under present circumstances.Nevertheless, the presently exploitable fractionof sulphur resources is also very large - 1.4billion tonnes of elemental sulphur (S), with areserve base estimated at 3.5 billion tonnes.

According to the US Geological Survey,“resources of elemental sulphur in evaporite andvolcanic deposits and sulphur associated withnatural gas, petroleum, tar sands and metalsulphides amount to about 5 billion tonnes. Thesulphur in gypsum and anhydrite is almostlimitless and some 600 billion tonnes arecontained in coal, oil shale and shale rich inorganic matter, but low-cost methods have notbeen developed to recover sulphur from thesesources.”

About two thirds of world sulphur suppliesare produced as elemental sulphur, and of thisabout 85% is recovered from hydrocarbonsources. This part of production fluctuates withworld energy demand, and the availability ofsulphur in other forms is affected by trends inother industries. The ability of the sulphur

Sulphur storage. Lacq, France. (L. Isy-Schwartz, Elf Atochem)

Millions of tonnes of S

Iraq

Canada

Spain

Poland

China

USA

Saudi Arabia

Mexico

France

Japan

Italy

0 200 400 600

Major sulphur reserves


Note : Estimated World Reserves = 1.4 billion tonnesSource : US Geological Survey, 1998


mining industry to hold the balance of demanddepends on the price outlook, which is largelygoverned by the prospects for phosphatefertilizer demand.

Notes11E.g. R.P. Sheldon estimates 112 billion tonnes as theactual and inferred reserve base: Industrial Mineralswith emphasis on Phosphate Rock in Resources andWorld Development, ed. McLaren & Skinner, pub. J.Wiley & Son, New York, 1987.12Resource estimates differ very widely. One estimateputs the potash resources of Saskatchewan alone atover 500 billion tonnes K2O. See Mayrhofer H, 1983,World Reserves of Minable Potash Salts, The SaltInstitute, Alexandria, VA, USA.


9. Will there be enough fertilizers?

a new fertilizer plant can be constructed andcome into operation within a period of aboutthree years, it is not possible to forecast thesupply/demand balance more than five yearsahead.

The supply/demand balance is calculated bycomparing forecast demand with estimates ofproduction capacities of nitrogen, phosphate andpotash fertilizers. The supply is “potential” inthat, if the demand does not materialize, therewill be surplus capacity available on the worldmarket. Since 1974, on no occasion has theGroup’s supply/demand assessments shownanything other than a surplus in each of thethree major nutrients.

At times the surplus has been large andinternational prices have fallen to very lowlevels. The same is true today. Supplies ofammonia and of nitrogen and potash fertilizerswill be more than adequate during theforeseeable future. The situation for phosphatesis somewhat closer to balance; the poor resultsof the 1980s and early 1990s discouraged newinvestments and both private and public sectorinvestors are now much more cautious than theywere in the 1970s. It takes longer to establish anew phosphate rock mine than it does to build anew fertilizer plant, especially in regions wherethe delivery of permits is strictly controlled andthe investment is particularly high; if there is tobe a tight situation in the coming years it couldbe in the availability of phosphate rock,especially rock of good quality. Of course, thereare many uncertainties, amongst which is theexport capability of Russia and fertilizer demandin China.

Analysis of regional supply and demandbalances reveals some interesting trends.

For example, the world nitrogen balance hasbecome heavily dependent on the FSU andCentral Europe. In the late 1970s and early1980s, rising energy costs in the industrializedmarket economies, lack of demand and low - oreven negative - capital returns combined tocause the shut down of millions of tons ofammonia and nitrogen fertilizer capacity inAmerica, Western Europe and Japan. After1989, the dramatic fall in domestic demand inthe FSU and Central Europe sharply increasedan already large excess of potential supply overdemand in these regions. Now, in the late1990s, economic factors favour the Middle East,where production capacity is expected toincrease rapidly in the next few years.

Since it takes two or three years to constructand bring a new fertilizer plant into operation,and in view of the large investment involved, itis necessary to assess the future supply/demandbalances of the major nutrients. Concernedabout the shortage of mineral fertilizers at thetime of the 1974 oil crisis, and the importanceof fertilizers in world food supplies, the 1974World Food Conference established a workinggroup of relevant members of the UN family oforganizations, the Food and AgricultureOrganization (FAO), the World Bank and theUnited Nations Industrial DevelopmentOrganization (UNIDO), to assess the supply/demand balances some five years ahead, fornitrogen, phosphate and potash. The fertilizerindustry has co-operated closely with this group,which has continued to produce its supply/demand balances each year ever since. Because


10. How can the effect of fertilizers be improved?

Some factors, particularly those related toclimate, are beyond the control of the farmerand represent risks which affect his willingnessto buy fertilizers.

Interaction between different cropproduction factors, including fertilizers, canproduce surprising synergistic effects. Cooke13

has stated that “in a highly developedagriculture, large increases in yield potential willmostly come from interaction effects. Farmersmust be ready to test all new advances that mayraise yield potentials of their crops and beprepared to try combinations of two or morepractices.”

In developing countries, farmers may bereluctant to experiment. This reflects therelatively larger financial risk which they oftenhave to face, as well as lack of knowledge andexperience of fertilizer use. Where governmentpolicies can minimize such risks, farmers inthese countries prove to be just as flexible astheir counterparts in developed countries, andthen the search for effective combinations ofgood practices can yield spectacular results.Among the factors affecting fertilizer efficiencyare:

� selection of appropriate crops and cropvarieties;

� depth and time of tillage and sowing;

� seed density and plant spacing;

� existing soil conditions, especially organicmatter content;

� choice of fertilizer and combination ofnutrients;

� rate, method and timing of fertilizerapplication;

� control of weeds and pests;

� irrigation and water management;

� harvesting efficiency.

10.1.The need for goodmanagementThe use of fertilizer requires “know-how”. Ifapplied at the wrong time or in the wrongdosage or without other necessary cropmanagement techniques, its effect is greatlydiminished and may easily be unprofitable. Theamount of increase in the harvest which isderived from fertilizer use depends on manyother factors. Among these are:

� the adequacy of soil moisture during cropgrowth;

� the adequacy of different nutrientavailabilities in the soil;

� the yield potential and fertilizerresponsiveness of the crop variety;

� the extent of pest infestation andcorresponding crop protection measures;

� methods of soil and soil fertilitymanagement.

Uneven nutrient distribution causes "stripe" and loweryields. Germany. (BASF AG)


The crop response to increasing amounts offertilizer is a function of the combination of allinputs and management practices, and theirjudicious selection and use depends on thefarmer’s knowledge and ability, supplementedby the advice obtainable from agriculturalextension services. The latter depend absolutelyon the quality of agricultural research services.

10.2. Improving fertilizerefficiencyFertilizer research and development hashistorically been mainly concerned withmaximizing the economic yield increase from agiven rate of nutrient application. More recently,much research has been concerned withminimizing potentially adverse environmentaleffects of fertilizer use. In general, the twoobjectives are entirely compatible: inefficientfertilizer use has adverse effects on both. Anyone of the factors mentioned above can severelyreduce fertilizer efficiency, though experiencehas shown the most important to be unbalancedfertilizer use, inappropriate crop varieties anddelay in sowing.

Each of the major nutrients has its owncharacteristics affecting the efficiency of its usein fertilizers. Nitrogen, for example, is highlymobile in the soil and is easily lost throughleaching, denitrification and volatilization. Thetiming and method of application of nitrogenfertilizers is crucial. With phosphate and potash,there are important residual effects fromprevious applications to be considered, sinceonly a part of these nutrients is taken up by thecrop for which they are applied. Solublephosphate is rapidly transformed in the soil intoless soluble forms, which are then re-solubilizedonly very slowly.

In tropical and sub-tropical regions, soilacidity is a severe constraint to plant growth andyield improvement. For example, 50% of thetotal arable area of tropical Latin America isaffected in this way. This can be corrected bythe application of limestone, but in many

developing countries agricultural lime is notavailable at an economic cost.

10.3. The importance ofbalanced plant nutritionIn the initial stages of fertilizer use, farmers tendto use only nitrogen, if it is available. Farmers inEurope and America were immensely favouredby the fact that phosphate and potash fertilizersbecame generally available many years beforean economic process for the large-scalemanufacture of nitrogen fertilizers wasdiscovered. This allowed a gradual improvementin the phosphorus and potash status of soils inthese regions. Farmers in developing countriesdo not enjoy this advantage. On land whereorganic manuring has been well practiced, this isnot initially serious; and even on land which hasreceived little or no previous manuring, nitrogenusually gives spectacular results. But with asuccession of larger crops, the soil contents ofphosphate and potash, as well as of other macro-and micro-nutrients, become depleted; and this,in turn, leads to a decline in the efficiency ofnitrogen use. Sometimes this can happen quiterapidly. In severe cases, an increase in nitrogenuse, without supplying other nutrients, canactually decrease yields.

0-0-0

Effect of balanced fertilizationon wheat - Indiabased on 10133 farm trials

Yield kg/h

0

1000

2000

3000

120-60-60120-60-0120-0-0Source : Randhawa and Tandon, 1992

O

NPKNP

N



The proportions of nitrogen, phosphate andpotash in total fertilizer use vary greatlybetween countries and regions. Different cropsand soils need different amounts of eachnutrient. Countries are, in any case, at differentstages of agricultural development, and thebalance between the nutrients used inagriculture is influenced by the availableknowledge among farmers. Developing countrieswhere subsistence food crops predominate willusually use more nitrogen than other nutrients.Countries with large areas of cash crops usuallyhave a more balanced ratio between thenutrients.

10.4. Fertilizer responseratiosFertilizer response ratios can be useful indicatorsfor estimating how much increased cropproduction might be expected from a certain

level of fertilizer use. These ratios represent theamount of output per unit of nutrient input.They can be general estimates or specific valuesfor given locations and conditions.

Numerous experts have calculated averageresponse ratios for cereals, primarily wheat andrice, in developing countries. As might beexpected, their figures vary substantially,depending on all the factors mentioned above.As a general guide, it is often assumed that oneunit of balanced nutrient supply (N + P2O5 +K2O), when efficiently used, should produceabout 10 units of grain. But this masks largevariations and takes no account of thecumulative residual effects of building up thebasic level of soil fertility through repeatedapplication of fertilizers over several years.Unbalanced fertilizer use results in diminishingresponse ratios, especially where irrigation ismismanaged and deficiencies are only partlycorrected by organic manures.



11. Economics of fertilizer use

though his expenses on inputs increases. This isbecause there are certain fixed costs which mustbe covered irrespective of the crop yield.Consequently, as yields grow, these fixed costscan be spread over more units of cropproduction.

11.2. Value/cost ratio (VCR)The value/cost ratio, or VCR, is very widelyused to indicate the profitability of fertilizer use.It represents the value of the increase in thecrop, divided by the cost of the fertilizer whichproduced this increase. If the VCR is greaterthan one, the fertilizer has been profitable.

For reasons indicated above, farmers indeveloping countries will generally not usefertilizer unless they expect a VCR of at leasttwo.

Unfortunately, this indicator can bemisleading. Firstly, it disregards the “addedvalue” of previous fertilizer applications - thecumulative improvement of the natural fertilityof the soil. Secondly, the highest VCR usuallyoccurs at the lower end of the yield responsecurve. A high VCR often coincides withrelatively high total production costs per unit ofcrop production. In extreme cases, a high VCRcan be associated with a negative net return, iftotal crop production costs are considered. TheVCR should always be considered together withthe net return.

The FAO Fertilizer Programme wasundoubtedly the most universal proof of thehigh potential returns to fertilizer use. Beginningin 1961, it operated for more than thirty years,passing through 40 countries with about onequarter of a million simple trials anddemonstrations in ordinary farmers’ fields. Theaverage VCR was nearly 5, and the best

As regular fertilizer use becomesestablished, the farmer who manages the

land with care will gradually improve its basicfertility. The residual effect of fertilizer use willincrease the value of the land, as well as itsprofitability. However, the farmer’s mainimmediate concern is the amount and probablevalue of the additional crop which will beobtained from the next use of a certain amountof fertilizer. Consideration will also be given towhether it should be bought for cash or oncredit, whether there are more profitable usesfor the capital - and the risks involved.

Three basic concepts are used to assess theprofitability of fertilizer use: the net return (orprofit), the value/cost ratio (VCR), and the cropprice/fertilizer cost ratio.

11.1. Net returnThe net profit from fertilizer use is probably themost significant indicator for the farmer. Intheory, net returns reach a maximum when thecash value of the additional crop obtained fromthe last additional unit of applied fertilizer isequal to the cost of that fertilizer unit.

This is often calculated from yieldexperiments, but it obviously varies from year toyear, depending on changing prices, weatherconditions and other uncertainties. This is whyfarmers in developing countries, where the risksare high, generally apply fertilizer at a rate muchlower than the one necessary to obtain themaximum net return. They cannot afford toovershoot this moving target and, in any case,they often lack the finance to use recommendedfertilizer amounts.

Nevertheless, it is true that the nearer afarmer can get to the maximum net return, thelower his cost per unit of crop becomes, even


fertilizer treatment increased crop yields by 50to 100% depending on the region.

The greatest agricultural challenge in thetropics and subtropics is often considered to bethe gap between research results and the actualachievements of farmers. In the Philippines, theFAO Fertilizer Programme showed that 55% ofthe difference between experimental rice yieldsand farmers’ yields was due to differences infertilizer use, whilst another 40% was due toinsect and weed control.

11.3. Fertilizer/crop priceratioBefore a farmer decides to use fertilizer, he willalways try to assess the likely selling price forhis crops and relate this to the cost of thefertilizer and its likely effect. Higher fertilizerprices or, alternatively, an expectation of lowercrop prices can induce lower use of fertilizer.However, the farmer can often be wrong, sincehe may not appreciate that the effect on hisprofits of a change in fertilizer prices is probablynot nearly so great as the same percentagechange in his crop price.

In the Philippines, for example, data from541 trials on rice showed that an increase of40% in the price of nitrogen depressed the net

return by only 18% with a constant paddy riceprice; but a similar fall in the crop would havereduced the net return by 58% with a constantnitrogen price. This indicates the greatimportance of government policies which affectthe ratio between fertilizer prices and cropprices.

No single economic indicator can determinehow much fertilizer a farmer can profitably usein a given case. Different input/output pricerelationships, various social and politicalconstraints, the availability of necessaryresources, the ability and willingness to takerisks - all these factors affect the optimum levelof fertilizer use and the farmer’s decisions. Ingeneral, farmers throughout Africa, Asia andLatin America apply substantially less thaneither the recommended balanced dose or theamount which would give them most profit. Thisrepresents a large, untapped potential forimproving farm incomes, national foodproduction and the welfare of vast populations.

In general, in developing countries, the lowprofitability of fertilizer use relates foremost tocrop prices. Changes in demand for fertilizertend to be three times more sensitive to changesin output price than to fertilizer cost.

Notes13G. Cooke, Fertilizing for maximum yield, pub. CrosbyLockwood, London, 1972.The N-tester chlorophyll meter can measure N-status

in the crop so that final application of nitrogen can befine tuned to meet the crop's precise needs. (NorskHydro A.S.)

11. Economics of fertilizer use


12. Fertilizer production and the environment

12.1. Ammonia and nitrogenfertilizer productionThe production of ammonia generatessubstantial amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2),which contributes to global warming. If naturalgas is used as the feedstock in a modern steam-reforming plant, about 2.7 tonnes of CO2 pertonne of nitrogen are produced. If coal or fueloil are used, this figure is about 25% higher. Onthe other hand, the production of urea requiresan input of about 1.6 tonnes of CO2 per tonne ofnitrogen.

The fertilizer industry’s share of the annualnet addition of CO2 to the atmosphere resultingfrom human activities is estimated at 2%; andhuman activities account for only 7% of thequantity released annually by biologicalprocesses. Consequently, the share of fertilizerproduction in the total annual release of CO2 tothe atmosphere is very small - in the range of0.1-0.2%. Nevertheless, the projected growth offertilizer use makes it all the more desirable thatthe industry should keep CO2 emissions as lowas possible. Since technological limits to energyefficiency have been almost attained, futurelimitation of CO2 emissions will have to comefrom the replacement of old, inefficient plants.

The production of nitric acid, used forammonium nitrate and nitrophosphatefertilizers, gives rise to the emission of nitrousoxide (N2O), which is a much more potent globalwarming agent than carbon dioxide. It is alsoconsidered to be detrimental to the ozone layer.The rate of emission varies widely from 1 tomore than 10 kg N2O per tonne of 100% nitricacid. Abatement techniques can greatly reducesuch emissions but are costly. It is estimated thatfertilizer production currently accounts for about6% of man-made N2O emissions, compared with

As with all chemical process industries, theproduction of mineral fertilizers gives rise

to emissions, which contribute to environmentalproblems, both globally and locally. Over the last25 years, much research and expenditure hasbeen devoted to minimizing these emissions.Like other industries, the fertilizer industrystarted with factories which would be totallyunacceptable today, both in terms of their wasteemissions and their internal workingenvironment. In the industrialized countries, theemergence of environmental conservation as amajor political issue led to tight regulation ofmanufacturing industries, not least the fertilizerindustry. Many developing countries - especiallythose with high population densities - are alsoadopting stricter environmental controls, despitethe immediate economic cost which this entails.

The environmental impact of a fertilizerplant depends on a wide variety ofcircumstances, including the nature of the plant,the processes and raw materials or feedstockswhich it uses, the location of the site, the natureof its surroundings, the regulations to which itmust conform and the expertise of itsmanagement. For various reasons, many plantsdo not yet practise the best availabletechnologies (BATs) which internationalorganizations such as the European FertilizerManufacturers Association (EFMA) arepromoting. Consequently, it is impossible togeneralize about the environmental impact offertilizer production, but the main problems areas follows.


nearly 50% from motor vehicles. Most N2Orecycles to land and water, and, as with CO2,vastly larger quantities are emitted throughnatural biological processes. N2O is estimated tobe responsible for 7.5% of the calculated globalwarming effect of human activities.Consequently, fertilizer production is responsiblefor less than 0.5% of this effect (0.06 x 0.075).

An advantage of the nitrophosphate processis that it does not involve the production ofsulphuric acid and phosphoric acid and thusavoids the disposal of the huge amounts ofphosphogypsum which result from thephosphoric acid process. Calcium ammoniumnitrate is a co-product of the nitrophosphateprocess.

Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are also emitted fromammonia and nitric acid plants. Nitric oxide isoxidized over a few days to nitrogen dioxide,which has an atmospheric residence time ofabout a week and is deposited in air, rain, or asnitrate particulates. This contributes to acid rainand smog. In the case of ammonia, emissions areonly about 1-2 kg NOx per tonne of nitrogen.With nitric acid, NOx emissions amount to6-9 kg N per tonne of converted nitrogen.Selective catalytic reduction, using ammonia toconvert NOx to nitrogen, is an effective means ofabatement, and more than half a million tonnesof ammonia are now used annually for thispurpose.

The storage, handling and transportation ofammonia and ammonium nitrate, as well ascompounds containing ammonium nitrate, havebeen the subject of much research, regulationand public advice. These products, together withthe commonly used acids, present varioushazards if the relevant regulations are ignored ordisrespected.

12.2. Phosphate fertilizerproductionAcid rain is also produced by the emission ofsulphur compounds. As far as the fertilizerindustry is concerned, these result mainly fromthe production of sulphuric acid and phosphatefertilizers, but ammonia production can also beresponsible where coal and fuel oil are used asfeedstocks. Most of the gaseous sulphurcompounds emitted in the course of fertilizerproduction can be recovered by scrubbing andfiltration, but much depends on the age andefficiency of the plant. Regulations concerningmaximum concentrations discharged to theatmosphere and minimum sulphur conversionefficiencies are universal.

Mineral phosphate normally contains 3-4.5%of fluorine. Its acidulation releases fluoridecompounds which are scrubbed to reduceatmospheric emissions to required levels. Theresulting fluosilicic acid has potentialcommercial value, but, if unsold, it can beneutralized by liming. Part of the fluorineremains in the fertilizer and, in the case ofphosphoric acid production, part remains in thewaste phosphogypsum resulting from thereaction process.

About 4-5 tonnes of phosphogypsum areproduced for each tonne of P2O5 converted intophosphoric acid. This impure gypsum is mainlycalcium sulphate, but, apart from fluorine, it alsocontains trace amounts of various elements,transferred from the phosphate rock. These caninclude arsenic, nickel, cadmium, lead, radiumand aluminium. The radium decomposes toradon gas. Consequently, the disposal of

Ammonia being unloaded from ship to storage tank atVisakhpatnam storage terminal. India. (GodavariFertilizers)



phosphogypsum is a considerable environmentalproblem with serious implications for phosphatefertilizer production, most of which add to thecost of the fertilizer.

The nature and amount of impurities inphosphate rock depends on its origin. Differentsources of rock vary widely in composition. Forexample, the cadmium content of phosphaterock varies from almost zero to over 300 mg/kgP2O5.

Above certain limits, cadmium becomes toxicin living organisms. It is naturally present in allsoils in widely varying amounts, and differentcrops take up cadmium at different rates. Part ofthe cadmium taken up by animal organismsaccumulates in their bodies and part is excreted.Thus, apart from phosphate fertilizers, animalmanure and sewage sludge also contributecadmium to soils. Atmospheric deposits resultingfrom industrial activities are also significant.Where the contribution from phosphatefertilizers is a sufficient concern, the onlyalternatives are to control the source ofphosphate and the amount applied to the land,or to use cadmium separation processes.Limiting phosphate processing to low-cadmiumsources of phosphate rock prejudices the use ofphosphates from a wide variety of countries,mostly in the developing world, with harmfulconsequences for their economies. Separating

cadmium from the rock is currently tooexpensive for fertilizers, and is presentlyconfined to phosphates for human and animalconsumption. Processes for separating cadmiumfrom phosphoric acid show promise, but areexpensive and not yet widely applied. Even ifthey were, this would not affect the large volumeof phosphate fertilizers - mainly singlesuperphosphate - which are manufacturedwithout a phosphoric acid stage.

12.3. Waste disposalThe disposal of waste phosphogypsum has beenpreviously mentioned. It is but one example ofsolid and liquid waste materials generated byfertilizer production. In the case of ammoniaproduction, catalysts have to be replaced everyfew years. Spent catalysts can contain oxides ofa variety of metals, as well as other chemicals,but most of them can be recycled or used forother purposes. Where sulphuric acid usessources of sulphur other than brimstone, theresulting cinders can sometimes be used for

Wetlands/scrub area reclamation after phosphatemining. USA. (IMC Global, Inc.)

Bagging of phosphogypsum for use as a soilamendment. Darou-Khoudoss, Sénégal. (IndustriesChimiques du Sénégal)



their metal content. Other wastes requiringspecialized disposal include wastewatertreatment sludges, scrubber wastes and filterdust, filter bags and empty chemical containers.

As more and more old fertilizer plants areshut down for economic or environmentalreasons, and phosphate and potash mines areexhausted, the problems of site remediation andclean-up are assuming growing importance.Since the owner is liable for harm to thirdparties resulting from site contamination, he isnormally involved in a complex and costlyprocess of plant decommissioning and siteremediation. However, standards differ widelyfrom country to country, regulations aresometimes ambiguous, and their enforcement isnot always adequate.

In brief, fertilizer production requires themost advanced environmental managementsystems if it is to minimize its potential forcreating environmental damage. Such systems,involving use of the best available technologiesand expert management, relate not only to thechemical processes involved but also to thestorage, transportation and handling of thedownstream production and waste materials.Where proper systems are adopted, thecontribution of fertilizer production toenvironmental pollution can be maintainedwithin acceptable limits. Fertilizer manufacturersare generally aware of their responsibilities inthis field, and governments are increasinglyinvolved, both nationally and internationally, inensuring correct standards of operation.



13. Environmental aspects of fertilizer use

quality of drinking water and increasespecific health hazards;

� they pollute lakes, rivers and coastal watersby erosion and run-off, which can lead toeutrophication (algal blooms), adverselyaffecting fish and other aquatic life;

� they pollute the atmosphere throughincreased denitrification and ammoniavolatilization, and they contribute to globalwarming.

13.1. Soil fertilitySoil fertility is a concept with numerousdefinitions. At its simplest and most subjective, itis the latent capacity of the soil to supplynutrients to plants - a quality which must besustained to ensure future food supplies, anunquantifiable promise of future fruitfulness.

At another, more scientific level, it may beregarded as a combination of soil propertieswhich, in the future, with a given set of externalinputs such as climate, cultivation, irrigation, and

The use of fertilizers to increase crop yieldshas been the target of much biased

criticism in recent years - biased because themedia of the developed world have chosen toconcentrate almost exclusively on adverseaspects, to the virtual exclusion of positiveaspects, which could, after all, be easilypresented as the adverse effects of not usingfertilizers.

All human activities affect the naturalenvironment in some way; and what is adverseor beneficial usually depends partly on one’spoint of view. The long-term sustainability ofany system requires complicated trade-offsbetween benefits and losses. Almost always,there are ways of minimizing losses whilstretaining benefits. The use of fertilizers is noexception, but farmers must have the necessaryknowledge. They must know how to usefertilizers efficiently in particular circumstances.Farmers must therefore learn a certainminimum of a complicated science or haveaccess to, and make use of, adequate advisoryservices. Most of the adverse effects of fertilizeruse result from inadequate knowledge amongfarmers. Bridging this knowledge gap is a morepositive approach to environmental protectionthan condemning its effects. In this respect, theFAO Fertilizer Programme was exemplary.

The following are some of the hazardscommonly associated with fertilizers :� they destroy soil fertility - the more they

are used, the more they have to be used toachieve the same crop yield;

� they diminish food quality - the use oforganic manure is healthier;

� they pollute soil with toxic heavy metalssuch as cadmium;

� they pollute ground waters by leachingnitrates, which can adversely affect the

Smallholder farm couple incorporating crop residuesin the soil to improve soil fertility. This work must bedone soon after harvest to enable timelydecomposition. Malawi. (FAO)


so forth, may be expected to produce a certainamount of a given crop. For a given soil, fertilityvaries over time and by crop or cropping systemand is affected by the combined effect of all theexternal inputs. The combination of soilproperties which constitutes soil fertilitycomprises not only the amounts and forms ofthe different plant nutrients, but also otherchemical characteristics such as acidity oralkalinity, physical features such as bulk density,water-holding capacity, rooting depth, andbiological properties involving the vast array ofsubterranean life without which the soil wouldrapidly become sterile.

Soil fertility should not be confused with soilproductivity. The latter is a quantitative conceptand relates to the past and the present - howmuch has been or is being produced.

As a result of agricultural surpluses indeveloped countries, concern for soilproductivity, which formerly took politicalprecedence and which obviously must stillprevail in the developing countries, has becomeovershadowed by concern for the sustainabilityof soil fertility. Intensive, high-input agriculture issuspected of undermining long-term soil fertility.It is argued that the resulting high outputs maydeplete the soil of elements and propertieswhich are not included in the inputs. Inparticular, the complexity of the skills andknowledge required to manage high-inputagriculture efficiently may be too great, causinga progressive degradation of the balance of thephysical, biological and chemical characteristicswhich constitute soil fertility - a balance whichthe simpler traditional low-input organicagriculture could more easily preserve. The useof agro-chemicals - fertilizers and pesticides -tends to be perceived as a proxy for thiscomplexity. Though totally different in theirpurpose, chemical composition and potentialhazards, fertilizers are sometimes groupedtogether with synthesized chemicals.

What is the evidence that fertilizers degradesoil fertility? The overuse or misuse of fertilizers

can, of course, produce effects which seem tosupport this thesis. Sometimes fertilizers areblamed for effects which have little or nothing todo with them. For example, problems of salinityare sometimes blamed on fertilizers, where thepredominant causes are poor drainage andexcessive irrigation. Moreover, declining cropresponses to fertilizers are inevitable if theapplication of nutrients is repeatedly unbalancedand does not correspond to the needs of the soiland the crops grown upon it. Similarly, neglectof the need for adequate macro-nutrients(calcium, magnesium, sulphur) and micro-nutrients also leads to declining responses to themajor nutrients. Blaming such effects onfertilizers per se is like blaming human obesity ormalnutrition on food.

The only true way of assessing the effect offertilizers on soil fertility is to conduct long-termexperiments, using fertilizers correctly inconjunction with the best available agriculturalpractices. No such experiments have ever shownthat the use of fertilizers results in declining soilfertility. On the contrary, the oldest continuousfertilizer experiment in the world at Rothamstedin the U.K. shows that, where mineral fertilizershave been continuously used for more than 150years, the soil is more productive now than atany time in the past. Similarly, at Askov inDenmark, mineral fertilizers have consistently


For centuries, recycling of organic matter has playedan important role in rice-based agriculture. Yieldincreases can be achieved through application at 8-10tonnes of farmyard manure per ha. Northern Vietnam.(Potash & Phosphate Insitute, East & Southeast AsiaPrograms)


proved more effective than the same amount ofnutrients from organic sources over more thanhalf a century. Well-fertilized crops producelarger root systems and greater amounts ofresidues which decay to enhance soil structure,organic matter content and water retentioncapacity, thus improving soil fertility.

In the world as a whole, but especially in thedeveloping countries, year after year, far morenutrients are being extracted from soils than arebeing replaced. This calculation can be made bysubtracting outputs (crop nutrient contents andnatural losses) from inputs (nutrient inputs fromfertilizers, manures, legumes, crop residues andnatural deposits). This involves complicated,debateable estimates, but, allowing for widemargins of error, the FAO has described plantnutrient depletion in many developing countriesas “a real and immediate threat to food securityand to the lives and livelihoods of millions ofpeople.”14

A recent report on the world food situationsays that “past and current failures to replenishsoil nutrients in many countries must berectified through the balanced and efficient useof organic and inorganic plant nutrients andthrough improved soil management practices.While some of the plant nutrient requirementscan be met through the application of organicmaterials available on the farm or in thecommunity, such materials are insufficient toreplenish the plant nutrients removed from thesoils. It is critical that fertilizer use be expandedin those countries where a large share of thepopulation is food insecure.”15

In contrast to this, some campaigners arguethat farmers should be able to operate within avirtually closed nutrient cycle. They claim that itshould be possible for nutrients extracted fromthe soil to be passed through the food chain andrecycled back to the soil. Organic farmerspursue this course, albeit with reduced yields,which are compensated by substantial premiumson the price of their products. By means of thesepremiums, they achieve economic yields, but

only because, accounting, as they do, for a onlya small share of agricultural production, theycan rely on sufficient supplies of organicnutrients, either by importing manure and/oranimal feeding stuffs from off their farms or byallocating sufficient land to animals and/ornitrogen-fixing legumes. In the former case, theyare importing nutrients. In the latter case, muchof their land is effectively devoted to supplyingnutrients to the remainder, and their marketedproduce still drains their nutrient resources.Moreover, nutrient losses from leaching andvolatilization are inevitable.

At the micro level of the individual farm,such a system can appear environmentallyattractive. At the macro level of national andglobal agricultures, given the present levels ofpopulation, urbanization, and socio-economicorganization, it would be disastrous. In the caseof developing countries, where “land hunger” isoften acute, it needs to be pointed out that vastareas rely on animal manure for fuel, thusburning off their organic nitrogen into theatmosphere.


A girl has collected dried cow dung for useas a fuel. India. (FAO)


They may also affect its taste by influencing itschemical composition - its acidity or sweetness,for example, or its texture and physical structure.Taste preferences are clearly highly personaland subjective.

Fertilizers are intended to correct naturalimbalances or deficiencies in plant-available soilnutrients. Such correction changes the quality ofthe resulting produce. For example, as thenitrogen supply increases, the content of proteinand some of the vitamins tends to increase,whilst vitamin C and sugar content maydecrease. A good phosphorus supply enhancesroot development, drought resistance, plantgrowth and ripening - all affecting the finalquality of the food. Potassium enhances certainvitamin and mineral contents, texture, firmnessand resistance to transport damage.

The balance between the uptake of eachelement also affects produce quality. Traceelement deficiencies can harm food quality. Thecombination and quantities of nutrients givingthe best food quality are not necessarily thesame as those giving the maximum crop yield -neither are they necessarily different.

Nutrients in organic forms must first bemineralized by natural soil processes before theybecome available to plants. Consequently, plantsdo not distinguish between an organic source ofa particular nutrient element and inorganicsources such as mineral fertilizers.

As previously noted, some fertilizers maycontain trace amounts of elements which aretoxic, if absorbed by the body above individualtolerance limits. In the soil, they can bemineralized in the same way as nutrients andare then partially absorbed by plants and takeninto the food chain. The body accumulates someand excretes the remainder. Thus manure andhuman wastes may contain as much or more ofsuch toxic elements as fertilizers and may, inaddition, harbour dangerous pathogens. Thesetoxic elements are naturally present in all soils.

In some countries industrial wastes are usedas sources of micronutrients. The US

The recovery, treatment and recycling ofhuman wastes is another possibility. Treatedsewage can be used in limited amounts inagriculture. But this poses special problemsrelating to the need to eliminate pathogens andtoxic substances. The long-term use of treatedsewage at high rates of application wouldrequire treatment processes which are currentlyuneconomic.

For all these reasons, it would be quitemisleading to claim that organic nutrient sourcescould replace a large share of modern, fertilizer-oriented agriculture. This is not to deny thevirtue, and indeed the necessity, of integratingorganic manures, fertilizers and leguminousplants within comprehensive plant nutritionsystems. Properly managed, integrated plantnutrition systems, designed for localcircumstances, are the key to sustained soilfertility.

13.2. Food quality and soilpollutionThe quality of food may relate to its appearance,nutritional content or taste. Fertilizers do notaffect the appearance of food, except in so far asthey affect the healthy growth of crops. But theydo affect its nutritional content. Whetheradversely or beneficially depends again onwhether they are used correctly or incorrectly.16

Potassium deficiency symptoms in soybeans. (Potash& Phosphate Institute)



Environmental Protection Agency has stated that“the Agency continues to believe that somewastes can be beneficially used in fertilizerswhen properly manufactured and applied.”17

13.3. Ground water pollutionFertilizer nutrients applied to the soil are notentirely taken up by crops. Some nutrientsremain in the soil, gradually building up areserve of fertility for the benefit of futureharvests. Some runs off the land as a result oferosion and heavy rainfall. Some is lost to theatmosphere through denitrification andvolatilization. And some is leached through thesoil into ground waters. This applies equally tonutrients mineralized from the soil’s naturalreserves and from organic manures, except thatfertilizers are usually in a fairly soluble form,whereas the process of solubilization of nutrientsin organic forms is slow, proceeds throughoutthe year, and peaks at times which may not berelated to crop needs. To this extent, nutrientlosses from mineral fertilizers are morecontrollable than those from organic sources.

Nutrient leaching to ground waters mainlyconcerns nitrogen. Normally, soluble phosphatecompounds are rapidly converted into lesssoluble forms by natural soil processes, andthese are not leached. Potassium binds to clayparticles, which also reduces leaching. Potassiumleaching can occur in light, sandy soils, orwherever clay is not a significant component, oras a result of excessive applications, butpotassium as such - at the concentrations foundin ground waters - has no adverse health effect,and there is no recommended limit forpotassium in drinking water. Mothers’ milk hasfar more potassium than is ever likely to befound in drinking water.

Nitrogen is different. In its mineral nitrateform, it is highly soluble and does not revert toless soluble forms. In the absence of plant cover,or when more nitrogen is applied than the cropcan take up, rain will wash nitrate down,eventually into ground waters. Timing and

quantity in relation to the crop are both critical,and the amount of nitrogen available from non-fertilizer sources must also be taken intoaccount.

There are many practices which help tominimize nitrate leaching, though some mayincrease other problems, such as the incidenceof diseases and weeds. In any case, the presenceof vegetation is essential to minimize nitrateleaching : land which is bare fallow has agreater potential for nitrate leaching than landunder vegetation.

Nitrate entering the body is reduced tonitrite, which reduces the oxygen-carryingcapacity of the blood. If the nitrate content ofdrinking water exceeds certain limits, it isthought that health can be adversely affected.With regard to fertilizer nitrogen, concerninitially centred on the possibility that it mightcontribute to infant methaemoglobinaemia.About 3000 cases have been noted world-wide,mostly in the period from 1950 to 1970, whenwell water was still being widely used formaking baby feed. Spinach and carrots can have

Sampling of surface waters: research into nitrateleaching. UK (Levington Agriculture)



high nitrate contents, but infant food productioncontrols have almost eliminated this risk. Thedisease has virtually disappeared from WesternEurope and North America.

Nitrates in water have also been accused ofcontributing to stomach cancer, but the WorldHealth Organization has concluded that “no firmepidemiological evidence has been found linkinggastric cancer and drinking water... but a linkcannot be ruled out.” The prevailing view is that,if nitrates contribute to specific ailments, theyare only one - a minor one - of numerous othercontributory factors.

13.4. Pollution of rivers andcoastal watersPhosphates can contribute to the eutrophicationof lakes and rivers, and nitrates to theeutrophication of coastal waters. Eutrophicationis over-enrichment of surface waters leading toan excessive multiplication of algae and otherundesirable aquatic plant species, with variousundesirable consequences. The origin of thenutrients is by no means solely agricultural, butwhere it is, the causes are mainly soil erosionand run-off, following heavy winds or rainfall.

Whereas phosphorus tends to be the limitingnutrient in inland waters, nitrogen tends to belimiting in estuaries and coastal waters.Coastlines around the North Sea, theMediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico have allsuffered, and the eutrophication of inland watersis always a potential hazard when water renewalis limited. Indeed, poor water exchange andoxygen deficient conditions at the bottom oflakes tend to cause algal growth, irrespective ofsupplementary nutrients from agriculture andother sources. All other things being equal, themore intensive the agriculture, the moresignificantly it contributes to this problem.However, soil erosion can be minimized by goodfarming practices, among which are themaintenance of vegetation, no-till, reduced orconservation tillage, mulching, contourploughing, and so forth. In 1996, US farmers

practised no-till farming on 15%, reduced tillageon 26% and conservation tillage on 35% oftheir planted areas and the proportions continueto increase. Reduced or no-till agriculture, orconservation tillage, reduces labour and energycosts, conserves moisture and enhances soilconservation.

By maximizing vegetation on agriculturalland and minimizing the need to use marginalland and woodland for agriculture, fertilizersmake a powerful global contribution towards thecontrol and minimization of erosion, soildegradation and deforestation.

13.5. Atmospheric pollutionAs far as fertilizer use is concerned, the emissionof gases to the atmosphere relates almostentirely to nitrogen, because of the ephemeralnature of nitrogen compounds in the soil.Nitrogen is lost from agriculture not onlythrough leaching but also through volatilizationof ammonia and denitrification of nitrate, bothresulting from natural processes ofdecomposition.

Ammonia emissions come mainly fromlivestock farming. It is estimated that about 40%of the nitrogen ingested by farm animals is lostthrough ammonia volatilization from animalmanures and from the animals themselves.Maturing cereal crops can also contributesignificantly to ammonia emissions. However,


Crops threatened by the effects of erosion. Bolivia.(FAO)


the surface application of urea, especially oncalcareous soils, and the practice of injectingammonia into the soil also result in ammonialosses.

Nitrogen fertilizers account annually forabout 4.5 million tonnes of ammonia emissions,which come down with rainfall or as directdeposition, restoring nitrogen and sulphur but,through a series of chemical reactions, acidifyingthe soil and waters, with adverse effects on eco-systems.

The product of denitrification is usuallynitrogen gas, which is inert in the atmosphere.However, in paddy rice production and naturalwetlands, methane is produced by the bacterialdecomposition of organic materials in theabsence of oxygen. Rice paddies are thought tocontribute nearly 30% of global methaneemissions, but the amount directly attributableto nitrogen fertilizers is probably very small.Methane contributes to global warming. Underanaerobic conditions organic matter can giverise to methane; and it is for this reason that theapplication of manure to rice paddies during theflooded period is not recommended.

On the other hand, by enhancing plantgrowth - and hence photosynthetic activity -fertilizer use contributes to the sequestration ofcarbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thusreducing the potential for global warming.

Though the greater part of this sequesteredcarbon returns back to the atmosphere, greatercrop residues lead to more organic matter in thesoil, and this increase in organic matterrepresents a net gain of carbon to the soil - again which can be improved by goodfertilization and tillage practices.

13.6. Fertilizers andenvironmentally sustainableagriculture“The biggest danger to the world’s naturalenvironment today is low-yield agriculture”.18

Low-yield agriculture means low-inputagriculture. Low-input, high-output agriculture issimply not sustainable, whatever methods areused to coax additional nutrients from the soil.Without the additional nutrients supplied byfertilizers, farmers would not have been able tosustain the growing world population without amassive expansion of the agricultural area and aconsequent loss of natural habitat; and thiswould have had incalculably adverse effects onthe environment.

In 1960, farmers harvested about 1.4 billionha. By the 1990s, this was still less than 1.5billion ha, yet food and feed supplies had beendoubled in the interim. If this had not happened,the world would have lost more than 2.6 billionhectares of natural habitat - about the size ofNorth and Central America.

The world’s population has grownexponentially since the early 1800s. Apopulation of one billion people in 1820 grew to5.7 billion in 1995. According to the WorldBank’s population projections, the world’spopulation will increase from 5.7 billion peoplein 1995 to 7 billion in 2020, most of thegrowth occurring in the developing countries.This includes increases in China from 1.2 toalmost 1.5 billion, in South Asia from 1.3 to 1.9billion, and in Africa from 0.7 to 1.3 billion. Therate of increase is likely to be highest in Africabut in view of the large population base in South

DEFORESTATION

Latin America &Caribbean

Sub-SaharanAfrica

SouthEastAsia

SouthAsia,0.6

Reduction in forest cover 1980-90 (in million ha)

More than 15 million hectares of forest disappeared

during the 1980's

7.4 4.1 3.3

Source : UNDP, 1998



Asia and China, there will inevitably be asubstantial increase in these regions. Globally,the rate of increase is slowing down and by themiddle of the 21st century the world’spopulation may have stabilized. It could evenbegin to decline. In the meantime the world hasto face the challenge of providing for a largernumber of people and, overall, increasedeconomic affluence.

If still higher yields can produce the foodand feed to support this population withoutusing more land, then virtually all of existingwildlife and its habitat, with its irreplaceablefood chains and contributions to climatepatterns, will have been protected - if theadverse effects of such intensive agriculture canbe controlled and minimized. This is the majorchallenge to the environment in the 21stcentury - teaching farmers to use intensivefarming methods efficiently, without waste, with theleast possible adverse effects on the environmentand on the health of the populations they feed andclothe.

Notes14 FAO press release, April, 1990.15 The world food situation : recent developments,emerging issues and long-term prospects, InternationalFood Policy Research Institute, 1997, p.25.16 Incorrect use of some fertilizers may alsocontaminate soil with heavy metals such as cadmium,with adverse effects on food quality - see previouschapter and below.17 EPA530-F-97-XXX, Nov. 199718 Environmentally sustaining agriculture, Denis T.Avery, The Hudson Institute, pub. Choices, AAEA,1997.

Women play an important role in agriculture.Providing them with technical advice and means ofproduction is essential. Indonesia. (PT PupukSriwidjaja)



14. Fertilizers and food supplies

to 1910 million tonnes. In addition to supplyinghumanity directly with a majority of its dietaryrequirements, cereals have also fuelled the largeincrease in meat consumption by providinganimal feed. Yield increases have accounted forthe overwhelming majority of the productionincreases of the major cereals.

Moreover, agricultural production hasgenerally grown faster in the developingcountries than in the developed countries,though from a much lower yield base.

New technologies - improved plant varieties,fertilizers and plant protection chemicals - havebeen largely responsible for the growth in cropyields, together with an expansion of irrigationand multi-cropping - increasing the number ofcrops taken annually from the same land. On theother hand, faster population growth indeveloping countries has meant that they haveachieved only a small gain in food availabilityper capita, and this has been very unequallydistributed. Africa, in particular, has seen adeclining food availability per capita, and many

14.1. Trends in agriculturalproductionOver the last 50 years, humanity hasaccomplished a feat which, in the previous 50years would have been unthinkable: it hasdoubled its population and doubled its foodsupplies. The prospect is for a repetition of thisfeat over the next 50 years. As for population,short of massive catastrophe or compulsory birthcontrol, there is little that can be done to reducethe forecast increase - though much that must bedone to prevent its continuation thereafter. Asfor food supplies, there is everything to be done- and a great and growing debate on how to do it.

Over the last 50 years, the increase inagricultural production has been achievedmainly by increasing crop yields: the agriculturalarea has expanded relatively little. In 1960, theglobal area under arable and permanent cropswas about 1.4 billion ha. By 1990, this hadexpanded by just 3.5% to 1.48 billion ha. In1960, world cereal production was about830 million tonnes.19 By 1990, this hadincreased to 1820 million tonnes - and by 1997,

Market. Guinea. (FAO)

Farmer tilling a rice field with oxen in Singaraja inthe north of the Island of Bali. There are four riceharvests a year. (FAO)


African countries face a bleak future unless thistrend can be reversed.

In the past, the balance between populationand food supplies has been maintained by acombination of natural resource depletion andtechnological innovation. It is certain that, in itspresent form, relying for energy as it does onfossil fuels, this balance cannot be maintainedindefinitely. As Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug,one of the architects of the Green Revolution,has said, “for too long, agricultural scientists haveleft the impression with the general public andpolitical leaders that the growing worldwidedemands for food can be coped with indefinitely. Wecannot understand those futurologists whose mainpreoccupation seems to be to prove that newtechnology will forever disprove the Malthusianthesis.”20

14.2. The key role offertilizersThe “Green Revolution” has often beenattributed to the discovery and use of high-yielding varieties of cereals which could flourishin the tropical and sub-tropical conditions ofdeveloping countries. These new cereal varietieswere introduced in the 1960s. Before this, thedeveloped countries had had their own “GreenRevolution” after a century of stagnating yields,which largely explains why, in the 1960s, theywere already using much more fertilizers thanthe developing countries. High-yielding plantvarieties give high yields only if they can extractmore nutrients from the soil than lower yieldingvarieties. Some environmentalists appear toclaim that relatively high outputs can beobtained from low inputs. If this signifies highcrop yields from low nutrient inputs, it is highlymisleading. Low nutrient inputs cannot sustainhigh crop yields for longer than the time it takesto exhaust the soil. When the soil is exhausted,the output is also exhausted. There is no suchthing as sustainable, low-input, high-outputagriculture, at least where plant nutrition isconcerned.

Just as manures and fertilizers supplementinadequate soil nutrient mineralization,irrigation supplements inadequate rainfall. Inmany situations, fertilizers and irrigation arecomplementary - neither can be usedeconomically, or at least to their full potential,without the other. Of course, this also applies toother components of intensive agriculture, forthese components are all interactive - theircombined effect is potentially greater than thesum of their individual effects. If the result is ahigher yielding crop, this translates into a greateramount of nutrients extracted from the soil.

Consequently, with regard to the trends ofthe last 50 years, “in a sense, the othertechnologies, such as higher-yielding varietiesand irrigation, simply facilitated the greater useof fertilizer” and this was both necessary andprovidential, because “the frontiers ofagricultural settlement had largely disappearedby the middle of this century”.21 As shownabove, the world’s farmers were able to growabout one billion tons more cereals in 1990compared with 1960. If they had done that atthe yield levels of 1960, they would have had touse 120% more cropland - in fact, nearly700 million hectares more. This, of course,presumes that 1960 yields could have beenmaintained on such a vast area of additionalcropland. Since farmers naturally use their best

Higher yields are necessary to satisfy increasing cerealdemand without harming marginal land.(Norsk Hydro A.S.)



However, the disparities in the intensity offertilizer use between different countries andregions is disturbing. Some examples are givenin the following table.

The International Food Policy ResearchInstitute has projected a global increase incereals demand of 41% between 1993 and2020. Similarly, it forecasts a 63% rise in meatdemand and a 40% rise in demand for rootsand tubers.24 The developing countries willaccount for 80-90% of these increases, withsub-Saharan Africa experiencing the largestdemand increases (100-150%). More than 90%of this additional food is forecast to come fromhigher crop yields, though higher agriculturalprices would provide some incentive to makethe high capital investments needed to developnew agricultural land. However, much of theexisting farmland also needs massiveinfrastructural investments to bring it withinreach of modern agriculture; and increasingfood prices in poor developing countries ispolitically unattractive.

Consequently, if crop production is to rise tomeet this demand, fertilizer use must also rise,irrespective of what new technologies mayemerge. This would be not simply in order toincrease yields on existing cropland whilstsustaining its soil fertility, but also to preserve

land first, much of this additional land wouldhave been of marginal quality, easily degradable,relatively inaccessible and much moreenvironmentally sensitive. To maintain 1960yields on such land would certainly haveentailed massive use of fertilizers and otherinputs, as well as huge infrastructuralinvestments.

In 1960, the world’s farmers cropped about1.4 billion ha. According to the Hudson Institute,“if the Green Revolution had not more thandoubled the yields on the world’s best farmland,the world would already have lost more than10 million square miles (2.6 billion ha) ofhabitat - about the land area of North andCentral America”.22

The level of fertilizer use and its rate ofgrowth are good indicators of progress in theimplementation of high-input technologies.During the 30 years from 1960 to 1990,fertilizer use in the developed countries increasedfrom 26 to 73 million tonnes.23 In the developingcountries, however, the increase was from amere 4 million tonnes to 65 million tonnes; andwith the collapse of the agricultural system inthe countries of the former Soviet Union andCentral Europe, the developing countries’fertilizer use had surpassed that of thedeveloped countries by 1992.


million tonnes N + P2O5 + K2O

OECD countries 20 45 46

Central Europe / FSU* 6 28 8

Developing countries 4 65 80

Total developed countries 26 73 54

World 30 138 134

* USSR / Former Soviet Union

1960/61 1990/91 1996/97


Average rates of application

Source : Fertilizer Use by Crop. FAO/IFA/IFDC. 1996

RateKg nutrients per ha

Russia 25France 240Wheat

Korea Rep. 320Cambodia 4

Rice

USA 257Tanzania 12

Maize

Tadjikistan 461Benin 45

Cotton

of N + P2O5 + K2O


the natural habitat from the ravages induced bythe agricultural exploitation of unsuitable land.

The International Food Policy ResearchInstitute argues that there are significantlinkages, particularly in Africa, between armedconflict and environmental degradation, naturalresource scarcities and food insecurity25.

14.3. Fertilizer use by cropsAnalysts and others world-wide have long beeninterested in making comparisons of fertilizeruse between countries and regions. One of themost common ways of doing this is to dividetotal consumption of fertilizer in a country orregion by measures of land area such as thehectares of arable land or by the hectares ofarable land and land in permanent crops.However, none of these aggregated statisticsindicate how individual crops are fertilized indifferent countries. It is difficult to compareapplication rates of countries that have largeareas of permanent crops such as oil palm,rubber, citrus, coconut, fruit and nut trees,cocoa, coffee, tea, etc., with those that do not.Statistics for countries that produce a large shareof their crops as vegetables or sugarcane, thatare fertilized heavily, do not indicate how theremaining crops are fertilized. Croppingintensity, for example as practiced in Egypt, alsoinfluences averages, as does the percentage ofarable land under irrigation. In some countriesin Western Europe and in Oceania, a largeamount of permanent pasture/grassland isfertilized and, because this is not counted asarable land, dividing total fertilizer use by thearable area gives misleading results - double ormore than double the actual rates in somecountries.

In 1992, IFA, FAO and the InternationalFertilizer Development Center (IFDC) decidedto conduct a survey to rectify this problem.Detailed statistics on the use of fertilizers onindividual crops are collected in the UnitedStates and the United Kingdom, but rarelyelsewhere. Hence the survey had to be based on

knowledgeable estimates. The estimates arebelieved to be reliable but they should be usedto reflect the general magnitude of usage by acrop rather than an exact measurement.

It is also difficult to expand the results of thesurvey data to regional and world totals becausethe countries that responded were not randomlyselected and probably have higher applicationrates than those that did not respond. Althoughthe sample indicates that 65% of the fertilizerwas used by cereals, a higher percentage ofglobal cereals area was included in the surveythan in the case of other crops. Adjustmentswere made to take account of such factors andthe results are given in Table 3. This methodindicates that wheat is the largest user offertilizers world-wide and that cereals useapproximately 55% of the world’s fertilizer. Thenext largest users are oilseeds and pasture/hay.

The world cereal area has declined from 717million ha in 1986 to 695 million ha in 1995.During the same period, the world’s oilseed areahas grown from about 126 million ha to 155million ha. The demand for vegetable oil andmany other uses for oilseeds has caused the areato expand. The growth of the animal feed sectorin developing countries has also had a majorimpact on the growth in oilseed area. Changes incropping patterns such as this can have animportant impact on the total consumption of

Estimated world fertilizer usageby crop grouping

* Oats, milo, millet, rye, triticale and teff* Primarily potatoes* Includes cocoa, coffee, tea, tobacco and pulses* Includes grassland, fodder, silage, etc...

Source : G. Harris. An analysis of global fertilizer application ratesfor major crops. IFA Annual Conference, Toronto, May 1998.

Fruits and vegetables 5

Fibres 4Sugar 4

Other crops * 3Pasture / hay * 11

Total 100

Rice 13

% of world usage

Barley 4All other cereals * 4Oilseeds 12Roots and tubers * 6

Corn 14Wheat 20



each nutrient as well as the average applicationrates in each country.

The reported information indicates that, aftercereals and oilseeds, fertilizer usage is relativelyevenly split between vegetables, sugars, roots/tubers, and fibers. The crops with the highestapplication rates per hectare, all above 200 kgtotal nutrients per hectare, are bananas, sugarbeet, citrus, vegetables, potatoes, oil palm,tobacco, tea and sugarcane.

14.4. Organic manuresThe restoration of soil nutrients necessitated bythe high crop yields needed to support thepresent and future world population cannot beachieved by organic manures alone. In thepresent circumstances, and a fortiori in thefuture, sufficient economic agriculturalproduction can only be achieved with mineralfertilizers. Organic materials have an unstable,uncertain and much lower nutrient content thanfertilizers. They are extremely sensitive totransport and handling costs; and depending ontheir origin they can contain potentially harmfullevels of elements such as lead, cadmium andarsenic.

For lack of alternative fuels, animal excretaare generally burned in many Asian and Africancountries, and also in parts of Latin America.For socio-cultural reasons, the use of humannight-soil is not widely practiced, except in

China. However, the fermentation of animal andhuman excreta to form biogas for domestic fuelis a promising alternative to simple combustion,since the resulting slurry can be used as manurewith reduced loss of nutrients. Cheapfermentation units have been developed, and ifthey could be successfully promoted wherevermanures are currently burned, the contributionto soil fertility would be locally very significant.But in the context of future world food supplies,quite apart from the economics of organicmanure distribution, there is simply not enoughorganic material to provide the necessarynutrients.

Nevertheless, organic manures and mineralfertilizers can often be used together - andshould be so used whenever it is physically andeconomically possible and environmentallydesirable. As the conflict between globalpopulation, energy use and agricultural ecologytightens during the coming decades, it willbecome increasingly necessary to integrate allavailable economic nutrient sources withinefficient systems of plant nutrition and cropmanagement.

14.5. Biological nitrogenfixationMuch research is devoted to the chemistry andgenetics of biological nitrogen fixation. Theobjectives are to improve strains of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, to extend the range of symbioticrelationships between nitrogen-fixing bacteriaand plants and, eventually, to breed non-leguminous plants that can fix their ownnitrogen. For example, it may be possible todevelop cereals with the ability to fix nitrogen intheir leaves. But in order to function, thenitrogen-fixing enzyme needs anaeorobic(oxygen free) conditions on the microscale.Whether such conditions can be engineered incrop plants remains doubtful. Optimism for earlysolutions to such biotechnological problems hasso far proved to be unfounded, especially sincethe development of new plant varieties is such aslow process.

Preparation of compost. France. (Société Commercialedes Potasses et de l'Azote)



In rice cultivation, the use of azolla hassignificantly augmented nitrogen supply in someAsian countries. Azolla is a water fern whichlives in symbiosis with cyano bacteria which fixnitrogen. However, azolla alone does notproduce the large nitrogen inputs required bythe most productive rice varieties. Moreover, itneeds substantial amounts of phosphorus for itsown growth. It is unlikely that azolla will makemuch difference to the need for nitrogenfertilizers in intensive rice cultivation.

Some nitrogen-fixing bacteria can live inassociation with the roots of grasses,contributing to the nitrogen supply of the plants.This can be locally important for some grasslandunder special circumstances, but the amount ofnitrogen fixed is small.

Another possibility is the development ofbacteria to convert plant residues in the soil toammonia. However, the extensive distribution ofsuch bacteria is unlikely to be practical, becausethe environmental consequences of the spreadof such bacteria in nature might be dramatic.

Consequently, for the time being, fallowing,the use of leguminous crops in crop rotations,and the alternate cultivation of temporarygrassland and cropland remain the only way forfarmers to augment soil nitrogen biologically.26

The view that nitrogen fertilizers may ultimatelybecome obsolete is not yet supported byscientific knowledge, and the impact ofbiological nitrogen fixation is likely to benegligible for the foreseeable future.

Notes19 Rice counted as paddy.20 Fertilizer: to nourish infertile soil that feeds a fertilepopulation that crowds a fragile world, N. Borlaug andC.R. Dowswell, 61st IFA Annual Conference, 1993.21 Future supplies of land and water are fastapproaching depletion, Lester R. Brown, in Populationand food in the early 21st century, ed. N. Islam, pub.IFPRI, 1995, p.165.22 Environmentally sustaining agriculture, Denis T.Avery, Hudson Institute, pub. in Choices, AAEA, 1997.23 Nutrient content: N+P2O5+K2O.24 The world food situation: recent developments,emerging issues and long-term prospects, P. Pinstrup-Andersen et al, IFPRI, 1997.25 Food from Peace. Breaking the Links between conflictand Hunger, E. Messer, M.J. Cohen and J. D’Costa,IFPRI, 1998.26 Asymbiotic bacteria also fix nitrogen in the soil, andatmospheric nitrogen deposits make a contribution,but these are not agriculturally controllable.

N is fixed by bacteria in nodules on roots of soybeansand other legumes. (Potash and Phosphate Institute)

Field trials on fertilizers and azolla. (PhilippinePhosphate Fertilizer Corp.)



15. The promotion of fertilizer use

intensive crop production. “No country has beenable to increase agricultural productivity withoutexpanding the use of chemical fertilizers.”27 Itspromotion must be a priority goal of developinggovernments.

15.2. Supporting themessengersFarmers everywhere are extremely averse torisk. Their confidence in local advisors andfertilizer dealers is absolutely essential. Thisrequires a continuing government commitmentto financing the recruitment and training ofsuitable staff and the maintenance of supportinginstitutions.

These institutions must include not only theadvisory services but supporting agriculturalresearch services with activities correctlyfocused on the practical problems encounteredat farm level. Fertilizer use must be monitoredscientifically and eventually integrated within apackage of other practices if it is to remaineffective and not environmentally harmful. Inthe words of the FAO, “some developingcountries are encountering difficulties inincreasing yields in spite of increasing doses offertilizers. The efficiency of fertilizer use is oftenquite low as a result of incorrect timing andpoor application methods or failure to maintainthe balance between the main nutrients,secondary nutrients and micronutrients. Soiltoxicity caused by salinity, alkalinity, strongacidity, aluminium toxicity and excess organicmatter also prevents the full benefits of fertilizeruse from being realized. Crop and nutrientmanagement at plot, farm and village level willhave to become increasingly sophisticated toensure that the lack of one component does notinvalidate the use of the entire package.”28

15.1. Spreading the messageThe adoption of fertilizer use as a regularfarming practice generally occurs in three stages:

1 The introductory period, when only the mostprogressive farmers use fertilizers;

2 The “take-off” stage when the number offertilizer users and the rates of use growquickly;

3 The mature stage when the large majority offarmers use fertilizers at rates which nolonger grow rapidly.

The time required to pass from one stage tothe next can vary, usually from one to severaldecades. Strategies to compress the introductorystage are essential. Specific government actiondirected to this end must be vigourouslypursued and supported by appropriate policies.

The introduction of fertilizer use depends oncreating interest and awareness among farmers,as well as confidence in local advisory agencies.Equally important is the establishment offarmers’ confidence in adequate, stable prices, atimely fertilizer supply system, and efficient,accessible credit and marketing arrangements.

The interest and awareness is created bydemonstrating the effect and profitability ofapplying fertilizers in normal farming conditions.These demonstrations can be complemented byfarm meetings and visits, class instruction, andprogrammes on radio and television. Anationwide fertilizer information campaign is anessential feature, supported by local fieldexperiments. The results must be transmitted tofarmers not only by advisory services but alsoby fertilizer dealers.

Mineral fertilizer use must be publiclyrecognized as the spearhead of agriculturaldevelopment - the first step on the way fromtraditional subsistence farming to modern


Fertilizer recommendations must be simple.Compound or multi-nutrient fertilizers can helpto reduce the number of recommendedfertilizers and promote reasonably balancedusage between the different nutrients. The localfertilizer trade must be regulated and supervisedto prevent fraud and maintain propercompetition; but it must also be provided withadequate incentives to operate profitably.

Matters affecting national fertilizer use aresometimes decided in several differentgovernment ministries. This invitescontradictions and lack of coordination. Ideally,all fertilizer policy matters should beconcentrated within a single ministry orsecretariat. An active process of consultationbetween the various interested parties within thegovernment, and between the government andthe private sector, should be institutionalized.

Fertilizer imports, national production,transportation systems, infrastructuralinvestment and an adequate marketing anddistribution network have to be planned long inadvance. Fertilizer sales are highly seasonal. It isno use if the fertilizer arrives after the timewhen it is needed. Sufficient stocks have to bebuilt up during the off-season to meet the peaksin demand, and this means suitable storage toavoid loss by deterioration and pilfering.

Moreover, farmers should not be expected totravel long distances to obtain fertilizer.

15.3. Financing fertilizer useMany developing countries are short of foreignexchange and depend largely or entirely onimports for their fertilizer supplies. This is oftenexacerbated by falling local currencies anddependence on foreign governmental aid, which,in recent years, has steadily declined. Fertilizer isonly one of many claims on available finance,but where food security is in danger, they mustbe given a high priority, if their efficient use is tobe assured. For as costly as fertilizer importsmay be, the corresponding food imports wouldbe even more costly; and food imports can be apowerful constraint on the national agriculturaleconomy and a depressing disincentive for localfarmers.

At the village level, millions of small farmersface the same problem - lack of finance to buyinputs, without which they can improve neithertheir output nor their profitability. Subsidies maykeep the fertilizer/crop price ratio favourable,but without credit the farmers cannot afford tobuy the inputs they need. Credit schemes are anessential element in promoting fertilizer use.

The quality of credit is as important as itsvolume. Not only does it have to be affordable,but it requires efficient supervision andintegration with the agricultural marketingsystem and the technical services. It also has tobe organized in a way which ensures high ratesof repayment and an awareness among farmersof their mutual interest in respecting their creditobligations.

Notes27 M.S. Swaminathan, The Observer, New Delhi, 17-4-97.28 World Agriculture Towards 2010, FAO.

IFA-sponsored fertilizer development project,coordinated by FAO's Special Programme for FoodSecurity in Zambia, involves a series of farmer fieldschools on Integrated Plant Nutrition. A pilot inputsupply scheme, involving initial credit support forlocal fertilizer retailers will be implemented.

15. The promotion of fertilizer use


16. Government, farmers and industry - partnersin food security

Throughout this book we have tried to makethree things apparent :

1. Fertilizers, and hence the fertilizer industry,constitute, and will continue to constitute,one of the most important keys to worldfood supplies - though by no means the onlyone. The more nutrients are taken out of thesoil by crops, the more have to be put back :there is no substitute for plant nutrients.And the more people there are on thisplanet, the more food they will eat. Forreasons relating to the various nutrientcycles - but especially the nitrogen cycle -there is simply not enough organic materialto sustain soil nutrient levels, and hence soilfertility - not even if all the world’s animaland human excreta could somehow becollected and recycled to agricultural land.

2. The fertilizer industry and its associatedtrades comprise a complex network ofsuppliers and buyers of numerous different

The world fertilizer industry has anoutstanding record of technical improvement ofits products and production processes. Since itsbeginning, more than 150 years ago, thefertilizer industry has contributed towards thepromotion of fertilizer use wherevercircumstances permit the prospect of asuccessful outcome. The fertilizer industry has a“duty of care” in the legitimate, efficient use ofits products by farmers. Evidently, it is notpossible for the industry to have a directinfluence on the billions of farmers throughoutthe world. But the fertilizer industryacknowledges its responsibility, together withother industry groups, to promote an efficient,economic, environmentally-conscious use of

raw materials, intermediates and finishedproducts, and this creates a high degree ofinternational interdependence. Over the lastfew decades, primary production has tendedto concentrate near the major sources of rawmaterials and feedstocks; and, as smallersources of these materials become exhaustedor uneconomic, this trend will continue,producing still greater geopolitical inter-dependence and division of responsibilities forthe prosperous survival of planet Earth.

3. The responsibility of governments forensuring food security will growproportionately with the growth ofpopulations; and governments in developingcountries bear a special responsibility forpromoting and distributing agricultural inputs,including fertilizers. They cannot do thiseffectively without the confidence of farmersand the fertilizer industry - all three partiesare in a partnership, without which theirobjectives will fail.

fertilizers, and to ensure that the relevantscientific information is made available. ThroughIFA, the industry can endeavour to improvepublic understanding of its own problems andprospects. We hope that this book will assist inthis endeavour.

If the rising tide of population is to beadequately fed, immense political goodwill andwidespread public interest in the problems andissues concerning world food supplies will berequired. In the final analysis, the growingconflict between humanity and the environmentcannot be allowed to bear more adverseconsequences for humanity than for theenvironment, since the two are interdependent.


As the future unfolds, we are convinced thatfertilizers will become more, not less importantin ensuring world food supplies. In the words ofNorman Borlaug, “let us all remember thatworld peace will not - and cannot - be built onempty stomachs. Deny farmers access tomodern factors of production - such as improvedvarieties, fertilizers and crop protectionchemicals - and the world will be doomed, notfrom poisoning, as some say, but from starvationand social chaos.”

To sum up, we may quote the words ofHRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to the50th Anniversary Conference of theInternational Fertilizer Industry Association: “Itis the job of farmers to grow food, but the levelof their productivity and the quality of theirproduce depend to an ever increasing extent onsound scientific advice, efficient and reliableequipment, the regular supply of the best seeds,fertilizers and pesticides and, above all, on thesympathetic encouragement of theirgovernments.”

16. Government, farmers and industry - partners in food security


Appendix 1 : Contact organizations

IFA - International FertilizerIndustry AssociationIFA, the International Fertilizer IndustryAssociation, comprises around 500 membercompanies in over 80 countries. Themembership includes manufacturers offertilizers, raw material suppliers, regional andnational associations, research institutes, tradersand engineering companies.

IFA collects, compiles and disseminatesinformation on the production and consumptionof fertilizers, and acts as a forum for itsmembers and others to meet and addresstechnical, agronomic, supply and environmentalissues.

IFA liaises closely with relevant internationalorganizations such as the World Bank, FAO,UNEP and other UN agencies.

IFA’s mission� To promote actively the efficient and

responsible use of plant nutrients in order tomaintain and increase agriculturalproduction worldwide in a sustainablemanner.

� To improve the operating environment of thefertilizer industry in the spirit of freeenterprise and fair trade.

� To collect, compile and disseminateinformation, and to provide a discussionforum for its members and others on allaspects of the production, distribution andconsumption of fertilizers, theirintermediates and raw materials.

28, rue Marbeuf75008 Paris, FranceTel: +33 153 930 500Fax: +33 153 930 545 /546 /547Email: [email protected]: http://www.fertilizer.org

UNEP - United NationsEnvironment ProgrammeUNEP’s Industry and Environment centre inParis was established in 1975 to bring industry,governments and non-governmentalorganizations together to work towardsenvironmentally-sound forms of industrialdevelopment. This is done by:

� Encouraging the incorporation ofenvironmental criteria in industrialdevelopment.

� Formulating and facilitating theimplementation of principles and proceduresto protect the environment.

� Promoting the use of low- and non-wastetechnologies.

� Stimulating the worldwide exchange ofinformation and experience onenvironmentally-sound forms of industrialdevelopment.

The Centre has developed a programme onAwareness and Preparedness for Emergencies atLocal Level (APELL) to prevent and to respondto technological accidents, and a programme topromote worldwide Cleaner Production.

39-43, Quai André Citröen75739 Paris Cedex 15FranceTel: +33 144 371 450Fax: +33 144 371 474Email: [email protected]: http://www.unepie.org


EFMA - European FertilizerManufacturers AssociationAvenue E. Van Nieuwenhuyse 4

1160 Bruxelles

Belgium

Tel: + 32 2 6753550

Fax: + 32 2 6753961

Email: [email protected]

Web: http://www.efma.org

FAO - Food and AgricultureOrganization of the UnitedNationsLand and Water Development Division

Vialle delle Terme di Caracalla

00100 Rome

Italy

Tel: +39 6 52251

Fax: +39 6 52253152


Web: http://www.fao.org

IFDC - InternationalFertilizer DevelopmentCenterP.O. Box 2040

Muscle Shoals, AL 35662

United States

Tel: + 1 256 3816600

Fax: + 1 256 3817408


Web: http://www.ifdc.org

IFPRI - International FoodPolicy Research Institute2033 K Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20006

United States

Tel: + 1 202 8625600

Fax: + 1 202 4674439


Web: http://www.ifpri.org

PPI - Potash & PhosphateInstitute655 Engineering Drive

Suite 110

Norcross, Georgia 30092-2837

United StatesTel: 770-447-0335Fax: 770-448-0439Email: [email protected]

Web: http://www.agriculture.com/ppi/index.htm

Contact organizations

Documents

The Fertilizer Industry, World Food Supplies and the ...large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph240/yuan2/docs/1998_IFA_UNEP... · The Fertilizer Industry, World Food Supplies and the Environment