Articles 2010

phosphorus is biologically vital. Supplies of phosphate rock – the only major phosphorus ore – are limited. So much so that phosphorus has been listed among the “endangered elements” where there is a risk to future supply. The problem is that the phosphorus used as fertiliser ends up dissolved in rivers and oceans as soluble phosphate, eventually becoming sediment. Currently there is no economically viable way of recovering it,

Le phosphate, la forme minérale du phosphore, est l’ingrédient essentiel de tous les engrais. Utilisé de manière intensive depuis les années 1950, il a permis l’envolée des rendements agricoles. Mais aujourd’hui, le monde s’achemine vers un pic de consommation, comparable à celui de l’exploitation des hydrocarbures. Si le phosphate venait à manquer, les prix alimentaires exploseraient, et avec eux le nombre d’affamés.

While the element phosphorus is not scarce in the earth’s upper crust, the amount that can be accessed for productive use in food production is orders of magnitude smaller due to a wide range of bottlenecks including physical, economic, technical, geopolitical, legal, ecological and environmental constraints. From a food security and sustainability perspective, the most important quantity is not the total amount of phosphate rock in the ground but the fraction that is available to be accessed by farmers and applied to agricultural fields for food production.