Half the world’s food exists because of industrial nitrogen, phosphate and potash. A disruption to those supply chains is not just inflationary — it threatens physical food production itself.
This is the most comprehensive and understandable explanation that I have seen of the interconnected dependencies of all of the elements that support the world’s food supply. Great job on this piece Amanda!
Uniquely well written educational essay following in the spirit of reminding us all that if it cannot be grown it has to be mined! And without those Germans beavering away in the late 1800’’s and early 1900’s creating the fertilizer chemistry they did the world’s population might be a lot smaller
Manure and similar organics are wonderful for a tomato plant on your balcony but entirely unsuitable for the main crops needed to feed humanity. Their very poor nutrient content make them unusable.
I don't remember the source, maybe it was Epoch Times, where I read that Some American farmers have planted less acreage this year because they could only afford so much fertilizer. So price does have an effect, in addition to availability - but as you say, supply and timing are the most critical. Price could be overcome by government or private charitable funding, but if the supply isn't there, no price will help.
The co-limiting framework is what makes the potash thread so uncomfortable. N, P, and K aren't interchangeable - more of one can't compensate for a shortage of another. But each runs through a different chokepoint entirely. A Hormuz disruption doesn't touch potash the same way. If all three are simultaneously under pressure through separate, non-overlapping vulnerabilities, the combined effect is worse than any single disruption model implies.
The reagent layer is something I've been turning over for a few weeks - your piece sharpened the picture considerably. On the sulfuric acid bottleneck specifically: is there any viable workaround, or is phosphate production effectively offline until Gulf supply normalizes?
45/50 pc of sulfur and ammonia comes from outside the gulf and other producers, the US and Nigeria to name a couple have upped production, but as I said somewhere between 25- 50 percent will just not be produced this year and it might not even matter because the supply chain is broken and what is produced won’t get to where it needs to be in time, fertilizer from mine to market is a complex system like dominoes, it doesn’t re route logically you can’t press a button.
The domino framing is exactly what the existing models miss - they assume the system re-routes through price when the physical reality is that it doesn't re-route at all. Fertilizer isn't a fungible container of electronics. The handling infrastructure, the hazmat requirements, the planting windows - none of it bends to a price signal. Thank you for the precision on the Gulf share - makes the argument sharper.
As an industry veteran, I very much enjoyed this well written piece and its clarity in outlining some of the associated risks. It should be noted that markets have a way of finding solutions when none appear to exist. Depending upon where you are farming (soil type) a certain amount of residual nutrients can remain in the soil as plants are not entirely efficient in 'up-taking' the nutrients available to them. This residual 'soil mining' is especially the case for potash and to a lesser extent phosphate, but not an option nitrogen that is volatile and lost and needs to be re-applied during each application season. To summarize, some 'soil mining' can reduce the impact of less or no fertilization - and therefore minimize lost yields. But it cannot be relied upon for more than one application season or yields really crater and not at all for nitrogen.
There are probably a number of short term mitigations like that including increasing the use of manure if it can be located, also a number of ammonia producers I beleive have been able to eke out production increases and I imagine some sulfur producers will do the same. I really hope Hormuz opens soon and that America and its Gulf alles take steps to make sure this cannot happen again.
One of the most important articles ever written to understand both the impact of the Straight of Hormouz for humanity and the need to ensure a rouge and unstable nation can never be allowed to control it!
However, the European Commission recently pointed out that the way forward should be the use of manure. :-)
How was it possible for our society to create leaders of this caliber? How did our leaders reach this point, completely captured by environmental activism?
Manure is an exceptionally poor substitute for fertilizer, when you have expensive and scarce fertilizer is a logical and necessary partial mitigation step, although most farmers already apply it to supplement fertilizer as well as to top up organic material in topsoil, but truth be told the bureaucrats in the EU are desperate and publishing complete lies and exaggerations about the efficacy of manure because the alternative is to admit they were not prepared or ready to support eu farmers in times of crisis.
This is the most comprehensive and understandable explanation that I have seen of the interconnected dependencies of all of the elements that support the world’s food supply. Great job on this piece Amanda!
Uniquely well written educational essay following in the spirit of reminding us all that if it cannot be grown it has to be mined! And without those Germans beavering away in the late 1800’’s and early 1900’s creating the fertilizer chemistry they did the world’s population might be a lot smaller
Manure and similar organics are wonderful for a tomato plant on your balcony but entirely unsuitable for the main crops needed to feed humanity. Their very poor nutrient content make them unusable.
Another great article, Amanda.
I don't remember the source, maybe it was Epoch Times, where I read that Some American farmers have planted less acreage this year because they could only afford so much fertilizer. So price does have an effect, in addition to availability - but as you say, supply and timing are the most critical. Price could be overcome by government or private charitable funding, but if the supply isn't there, no price will help.
The co-limiting framework is what makes the potash thread so uncomfortable. N, P, and K aren't interchangeable - more of one can't compensate for a shortage of another. But each runs through a different chokepoint entirely. A Hormuz disruption doesn't touch potash the same way. If all three are simultaneously under pressure through separate, non-overlapping vulnerabilities, the combined effect is worse than any single disruption model implies.
The reagent layer is something I've been turning over for a few weeks - your piece sharpened the picture considerably. On the sulfuric acid bottleneck specifically: is there any viable workaround, or is phosphate production effectively offline until Gulf supply normalizes?
45/50 pc of sulfur and ammonia comes from outside the gulf and other producers, the US and Nigeria to name a couple have upped production, but as I said somewhere between 25- 50 percent will just not be produced this year and it might not even matter because the supply chain is broken and what is produced won’t get to where it needs to be in time, fertilizer from mine to market is a complex system like dominoes, it doesn’t re route logically you can’t press a button.
The domino framing is exactly what the existing models miss - they assume the system re-routes through price when the physical reality is that it doesn't re-route at all. Fertilizer isn't a fungible container of electronics. The handling infrastructure, the hazmat requirements, the planting windows - none of it bends to a price signal. Thank you for the precision on the Gulf share - makes the argument sharper.
As an industry veteran, I very much enjoyed this well written piece and its clarity in outlining some of the associated risks. It should be noted that markets have a way of finding solutions when none appear to exist. Depending upon where you are farming (soil type) a certain amount of residual nutrients can remain in the soil as plants are not entirely efficient in 'up-taking' the nutrients available to them. This residual 'soil mining' is especially the case for potash and to a lesser extent phosphate, but not an option nitrogen that is volatile and lost and needs to be re-applied during each application season. To summarize, some 'soil mining' can reduce the impact of less or no fertilization - and therefore minimize lost yields. But it cannot be relied upon for more than one application season or yields really crater and not at all for nitrogen.
There are probably a number of short term mitigations like that including increasing the use of manure if it can be located, also a number of ammonia producers I beleive have been able to eke out production increases and I imagine some sulfur producers will do the same. I really hope Hormuz opens soon and that America and its Gulf alles take steps to make sure this cannot happen again.
One of the most important articles ever written to understand both the impact of the Straight of Hormouz for humanity and the need to ensure a rouge and unstable nation can never be allowed to control it!
Thanks Amanda!
Very good, Amanda!
However, the European Commission recently pointed out that the way forward should be the use of manure. :-)
How was it possible for our society to create leaders of this caliber? How did our leaders reach this point, completely captured by environmental activism?
Manure is an exceptionally poor substitute for fertilizer, when you have expensive and scarce fertilizer is a logical and necessary partial mitigation step, although most farmers already apply it to supplement fertilizer as well as to top up organic material in topsoil, but truth be told the bureaucrats in the EU are desperate and publishing complete lies and exaggerations about the efficacy of manure because the alternative is to admit they were not prepared or ready to support eu farmers in times of crisis.
I guess El Nino reduces fertilizer demand ?
No El Niño makes yields on fertilizer deprived crops even worse…
But you are not spreading P if the crop has failed. Yara has held up where it fell in 22 with high energy costs.
very sobering. I hope the wealthier economies don't let this become a total catastrophe for the developing economies