Is a key ingredient humans need to live about to run short?
Phosphorus is a key ingredient in modern fertilizers and essential for all living organisms. Will we have enough to feed the world in the decades to come?
Phosphorus is a key ingredient in modern fertilizers and essential for all living organisms. Will we have enough to feed the world in the decades to come?
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Africa as a whole is going to face two major problems in the 21st century: food security and adapting to climate change.
A detailed projection of phosphorus production by two Australian researchers indicates that world phosphate rock production will most likely peak in 2027. Phosphorus is a finite resource and cannot be substituted for agricultural uses. Without the use of phosophrus in fertilisers it would be difficult to provide sufficient food for an expanding world population.
The problem here is, that we’ve switched from a closed loop system where the waste from the farm house goes into the farm yard and all the phosphorus can recycle, to a linear system where the phosphorus gets mined…
The following is an update to a previous posting. If anything, the situation might be worse that I had concluded then, but the issue of phosphate rock reserves is more complex than I had deduced.
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