(NaturalNews) The world is faced with a global fertilizer shortage, experts say, placing even more strain on food prices.
In
the last few decades, an increasing reliance on industrial fertilizers
has led to surging demands for the largely fossil-fuel-based products.
Between 1996 and 2008 alone, fertilizer increased by 56 percent in less
industrialized nations and 31 percent worldwide.
The bulk of this
increased demand comes from rising meat consumption in the less
industrialized world, as more people adopt a Western diet. Coupled with
the recent push to devote more land to production of biofuels, the
cultivation of more grain as animal feed has placed pressure on existing
fertilizer production infrastructure, and a shortage has been
anticipated since at least 2003.
Due to a limited supply being
outstripped by demand, synthetic fertilizer prices have increased nearly
threefold in the last year alone. Some Midwest dealers have experienced
supply problems, leading them to restrict how much fertilizer each
customer can purchase.
"If you want 10,000 tons, they'll sell you
5,000 today, maybe 3,000," said Iowa fertilizer dealer W. Scott Tinsman
Jr. "The rubber band is stretched really far."
Rising prices
have placed an incredible financial strain on companies that subsidize
their farmers' fertilizer. In India, for example, the yearly fertilizer
subsidy has increased from $4 billion in 2004-05 to an estimated $22
billion this year.
Fertilizer producers are building more than 50 new factories to eliminate the shortage,
but analysts say that the supply problem will rear its head again in
the long term. Because synthetic fertilizers are based heavily on fossil
fuels, shortages in oil will eventually make themselves felt in the fertilizer
industry. In addition, the negative ecological and health consequences
of industrial fertilizer, such as creating massive "dead zones" in
oceans around the world, will only worsen with increasing use.
A
recent report by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) recommended that people consume more local food and that farmers use more natural farming techniques, including non-industrial fertilizers.
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