Guest Post by Colin Todhunter
As oil and gas prices rise so does the price of artificial chemical fertilisers – the lynch-pin of industrial agriculture’s claims to be ‘efficient’. In the UK, the price of nitrogen fertiliser has doubled over the past year to around £330 per tonne. With oil currently at over $130 a barrel and with OPEC warning it could reach $200 by the end of the year, it has been suggested that fertilisers could hit GBP 500 a tonne. At these prices, the claimed efficiency of fossil-fuel and fertiliser dependent industrial farming begins to collapse.”
The above extract is from a 2008 Soil Association press release. Not much has changed.
In July 2022, the price of oil is just over $100 per barrel and fertilisers are well more than double the 2008 price. In fact, the price of fertilisers has doubled since 2021.
Much has been written in recent months about supply chain crises stemming from the conflict in Ukraine and the effects on gas and oil. Perhaps up to two thirds of the global population are reliant on nitrogen-based synthetic fertilisers for much of their food. As a result, alarm bells have been ringing over fertiliser and food shortages, which will hit the world’s poorest the worst.
With fears of rising prices for natural gas – essential for producing nitrogen fertiliser – we are seeing the vulnerability of a fossil-fuel dependent food system. Nitrogen fertilisers are made from ammonia produced by the Haber-Bosch process, an energy-intensive approach. Natural gas usually supplies the hydrogen. The nitrogen is derived from the air. This ammonia is used for all nitrogen fertilisers, including anhydrous ammonium nitrate and urea.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, in the period 1961-2014, global nitrogenous fertiliser consumption went from a little more than 10 million tonnes to around 105 million tonnes. This has helped feed and maintain a rapidly growing global population.
But this has come at a high cost in terms of mineral-depleted and microbiological-degraded soils, polluted waterways, unstable nitrogen in soils which release nitrous oxide into the atmosphere and a food system extremely vulnerable to oil and gas price rise volatility due to war, commodity speculation or some other catastrophe.
The situation in Ukraine and the West’s sanctions on Russia aside, the current crisis might not be solely due to the economics of supply and demand. The recent article by Antonia Juhasz ‘Why are gas prices so high?’ reports that current prices are not reflective of supply chain problems.
In effect, energy traders are stoking rising prices and volatility when it comes to the price of oil, natural gas and other vital fossil-fuel commodities.
Given the environmental impacts and the vulnerability to price shocks and largely unregulated speculation, it is increasingly clear that the world must move away from its reliance on fossil-fuel agriculture. This also involves delinking from a globalised food system based on long-line supply chains.
For instance, Russia and Ukraine produce more than half of the world’s supply of sunflower oil and 30% of the world’s wheat. Some 45 African and least-developed countries import at least a third of their wheat from Ukraine or Russia with 18 of them importing at 50% or more.
Regional and local community-owned food systems based on food sovereignty and short(er) food supply chains that can cope with future shocks are required.
How we cultivate food also needs to change.
The EU’s ‘farm to fork’ strategy advocates for at least a 20% reduction in synthetic fertiliser use by 2030 and at least a 50% reduction in pesticides.
This has come under fire from the US government and its cronies in the agrochemical sector who forward tired and discredited arguments that this will fuel hunger and starvation and lead to increased land use.
The industry is determined to undermine the EU’s strategy, which also aims by 2030 to more than triple the percentage of EU farmland under organic management (from 8.1% to 25%).
‘A loud lobby for a silent spring’ is a 2022 report by the Brussels-based lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory, which details the carefully orchestrated attack on this EU strategy by the industry. Its business model depends on trapping farmers on chemical treadmills.
Rather than rehash the arguments here, readers may turn to author and impact investor Brian Halweil who presented a detailed, research-based takedown of the anti-organic arguments of the pesticide lobby some years back. His piece originally appeared in World Watch Volume 19, Number 3. It can be accessed on the Organic Consumers Association website – ‘Can Organic Food Feed the World?’
Halveil also rebuts the claim that organic fertilisers are insufficient in quantity and effect for maintaining necessary levels of productivity. The arguments for organic methods and agroecological approaches and evidence of their success and scaling up have been well documented (see the 2022 article ‘Living in Epoch-Defining Times: Food, Agriculture and the New World Order’ for a brief overview).
[It’s interesting to note the current crisis in Sri Lanka is being part-blamed on the government switching to 100% organic farming, in a clear effort to discredit the practice – ed.]
Readers are also urged to access the short but excellent backgrounder on YouTube Understanding Our Soil: The Nitrogen Cycle, Fixers and Fertilizer (2021), which describes the deleterious impact of modern synthetic fertilisers on soil, water and the atmosphere and how organic nitrogen-fixing methods can address these problems, not least by restoring and boosting soil fertility.
Of course, no one is advocating an immediate shift to organic cultivation methods. There has to be a gradual and careful phase out and phase in which would take place over a period of many years.
In this respect, Vandana Shiva says in a recent article that it is time governments made the fertiliser industry pay for nitrogen pollution and redirect subsidies from industrial agriculture to ecological farming.
Rather than attacking farmers (as is currently happening in the Netherlands), she says new agroecology schools need to be open for farmers to make a transition to ecological agriculture over a three- to five-year period.
At the same time, we must not be hoodwinked by the relentless fear-mongering (concerning organics) of the agritech-agribusiness lobby, which requires farmers to continue to purchase its proprietary inputs, including synthetic fertilisers, while continuing to rollout and impose its high-input, high-energy, health-damaging model of industrial agriculture across the world.
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For fuck sake, the Sri Lankan farmers abandoned “organic farming” when their yields dropped 66%. They didn’t choose to do that to discredit anyfuckingone.
“Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture and is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal. ”
Colin grew three tomato plants last year. Unfortunately he forgot to water them so his yields were very disappointing. His boyfriend said the one cherry tomato that survived did taste quite yummy on the arugula he had purchased from cosco.
Not entirely true . Colin achieved great success at growing and marketing a boutique cucumber that looking amazingly like a donkey schlong, using nothing but digitized cow manure and mouse clicks, therefore proving via Farm Simulator 22 that no one needs no stupid chemical fertilizers.
‘Perish’. The Thought.
Had not elizabeth warrens’ ancestors shared High Tech “Three Sisters”, wood ash, and fish fertilizer farming practices with them.
If ONLY the Indians would have practiced ‘Hotel California’ Policies…
Follow the money. Who produces most of the global fertilizer? Russia
You are quickly catching up with Russia with the amount of fertilizer you’ve been producing on TBP.
Russia? 😂 poot’n part-n-parcel.
“Given the environmental impacts and the vulnerability to price shocks and largely unregulated speculation, it is increasingly clear that the world must move away from its reliance on fossil-fuel agriculture. This also involves delinking from a globalised food system based on long-line supply chains.”
Correct…. the answer is to grow food organically close to home. To regenerate the soil if need be with a more biodynamic approach. Farm to table. It is better for the human microbiome to eat food that is naturally roduced by the forces of the local environmental microbiome. They are linked and synergistic in their impact on each other. Fossil fuel big agribusiness farming is dead. Buy your food produced close to home and/or grow your own food. Lean about canning, preserving and fermenting your food for winter.
People used to farm without any commercial fertilizers. It was called the Great Depression . Some people went hungry.
It was called all of human history except the last 80 years.
Somehow we survived.
5 million vs 8 billion hungry mouths. . You’re gonna’ need a bigger pile of cow shit.
The Great Depression was a monetary crisis, not a farming one.
The new depression will be both
You can’t farm without money, bubba . Fertilizer, seed, mules and hoes ain’t free.
The great depression was a money changer great reset designed to push families off their land and into the money changed owned textile mills. The depression totally reshaped the South, tens of thousands migrated to cotton mill towns leaving ghost towns in their wake, with untold numbers dying from diseases associated with malnutrition. The Midwest suffered similar . already industrialized Yankee towns was mostly immune , I think. They’d already succumbed to life in teh rat maze.
“with untold numbers dying from diseases associated with malnutrition.”
And to think…Jose’s and elizabeth warrens’ ancestors already knew about this. Too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization
And of course, uncle schlomo did the ‘Shake-n Bake’…”And I helped!”
“…a monetary crisis”
Totally man-made, full of artificial ingredients. Too.
Has anyone thought to tap Congress for steaming piles of bullshit?
Sri Lankan’s queuing up to come to America.
Looks like some shark food washing out to sea in that last shot.
The whole world is in a pickle with regard to farming at scale. Industrial farming is unsustainable for many reasons. But switching back to organic practices is at least a three year process… during which time you should expect near-zero yields as you revive dead soil.
Most don’t have that type of patience when it comes to food. The answer, of course, is a return to highly local, small-scale agriculture.
10 years, minimum, and that is with intensive mixed use management practices.
There are so many glaring omissions it is hard to know where to start clearing them up.
#1- The problem of “feeding the world” is rooted in human labor choices rather than techniques. Of course regenerative agriculture can feed the world absent all artificial inputs, but not when you’ve deliberately made the choice to depend on the production output of 2% of the population while the other 98% only participate in the eating end of the business. I have no idea what the ideal percentage should be, but it would likely be somewhere in the 50% range. That governments created this insanely unbalanced system should surprise no one. It is very likely that their intent was to create dependency, that it was was foundational to the advent of the get big or get out strategy of the last three quarters of a century. Perhaps it was just pure hubris tied with greed and less malevolent than brazenly reckless, either way it is the system we now have and one which will not correct itself absent some serious realignment of human priorities.
#2- The simple cessation of pesticides and herbicides will not solve the problems, in fact it will- at least in the short term of say 10 years or more- lead to massive droughts, dust storms and plagues of insects. These will of course lead to mass starvation. Perhaps that was always the intent. Who knows.
#3- Only by a complete shift in focus from a population of specialists and dependents can we even begin to address this issue on any scale. People have got to learn how to feed themselves again in the same way that they breathe unassisted. Your nourishment is your responsibility and that doesn’t mean just paying someone else to grow, process, store, prepare your food. One doesn’t hire someone to eat for them so how could we have ever believed that we could omit our responsibility to participate in every step that leads up to spooning that morsel into our own mouth? How could anyone have ever believed in such a ridiculous concept in the first place absent a concerted effort to mislead us about something so fundamental to human existence?
Maybe I’m just an old crank with my head so far up my fourth point of contact I can’t perceive reality, but I don’t think that’s the case. I see only one offramp from this highway of death and it features billions of people heading back to the land, not towards some AI assisted, robot operated urban cluster where all our needs are met. If ever there was a pipe dream that’s it.
Figure this out soon people or it will figure it out for you.
Not everyone has the luxury ($$$) of living on a farm with many acres. Not everyone has the knowledge or ability to grow food.
Your advice is well intended, I understand that …. even though you are calling for people like me to starve to death!”
Brother, can you spare a potato?
You could do something about that.
You probably should.
According to some here I’m a dumbass, so that precludes gaining knowledge.
Also, the ability part relates to physically ability. I’m getting old, and I have Maynardkrebs disease.
Maynardkrebs disease .LOL..had to look that one up.
MaynardG.Krebs, you forgot the G. Work is a four letter word.
I got out of PRNJ why can’t you?
Good one Plainfield…stay away from small boats and 3 hour tours!
Total shit. Farming is one of the most labor intensive, disappointing endeavors you can engage in.
Why the fuck do you think farmers used to have 14 kids…cuz’ they were all Catholic?
This is why the majority of Americans gave up farming on the 30’s and migrated into the cities to work 6 grueling days a week in the mills.
My father, who spent his youth plowing a mule, used to say, I don’t know why they call them the ‘good ole’ days’, I don’t remember anything good about them.
I don’t believe you.
It sure looks like a LOT of fun on The Little House On The Prairie …. which is a very accurate show.
Lawsy, ’bout near quittin’ time…. we in da’ shawt rows now !!!
You don’t know what are talking about.
No ,You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about. I grew up in the rural South. My family were all farmers. The South is not Yankee land . I know the history and you don’t know shit. How much money have you invested in farming vs your return , trust fund baby ?
Flash- I lived on 80 acres (deep south) and we truck farmed over half. That is way too much work with the methods we had back in the day. I never wanted to be a farmer.
Fucktards who never spent a day toiling in the fields, under a scorching Deep South sun, with a million gnats buzzing about their heads, have no idea what old farming practices were like in the South . All Yankees know about the South are Florida beaches.
Ask one about the getting in short rows. They want know what the hell you talking about.
Nor did they have to put up with a huge chunk of the population being 60 IQ blacks and mostly stand around a watch you/whitey do all the work. Good times in Dixie Flash.
ha ha ha….good times.
“Fucktards who never…”
Not too sure about ANYTHING these days, but i’m pretty sure i’m happy that i’m NOT…
There’s a retired Yankee that bought an old farmhouse up the road from me and every time I run into him , he tells me how the oppressive summer heat gives him the shits causing him to have to live mostly inside during the 6 months of summer. Make me laugh.
An old ex Congressman friend of mine used to say that the only reason the South grew at all was the invention of air-conditioning , otherwise all the damn Yankees would have stayed up North, where they belong.
Semper validam ad dextram
Where Flash went wrong was he failed to marry well, that makes all the difference in the world. Millions backing multi/multi million dollar farm operations is far easier than a poor schmuck without two nickels to rub together. It’s like anything else, you can make anything fantastic if you have loads of money to throw at it.
You have said many times that it is important to marry well.
Yankees don’t know shit about the great migration.
Joo Jersey is the Garden State, I thought youse guys knew something about growing food?
One year all my tomatoes gave me the middle finger.
The next year all my cucumbers were fucking each other.
I don’t need to put up with shit from veggies, so I quit.
Viagra is what cucumbers crave.
I second the tomato.
That is the personification of you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
If you deliberately choose not to alter your life if the perpetuation of your current behavior guarantees your death by starvation, then you have made that choice.
Yawnnnnn … 70 year old men , who spent their entire working lives at a desk , should move to the sticks and start a back breaking life of sustenance farming, instead of enjoying the few years they have left in whatever comfort they can afford. Do you know how silly you sound? Start a career farming at the end of your life…it’ll be great and you’ll enjoy every minute of it. rmfe…
“who spent their entire working lives at a desk”
who made that choice? You wanted comfort, you got comfort. Enjoy your Doritos while they last.
Stuck, to learn to farm, all you need is 10 years minimum, with intensive mixed use management practices and you’ll be an accomplished gentleman farmer, before you know it. Oh, and you’ll need a million dollar barn too, to keep your 200, 000 dollar tractor. But, that should be no problem for you, just dig into your inheritance. Easy peasy…
“even though you are calling for people like me to starve to death!”
Au Contraire, Pierre. Writing on the Wall, LOOOONG Time.
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/writing-on-wall_bible/
‘billions headed back to the land’ …not doubt, looking for that last meal and God help any who stand in their way. You don’t own it, if you can’t defend it.
Really, where’s the lie?
” and it features billions of people heading back to the land”.
Agreed.
Might be slightly cynical. Seems to be ‘The Plan’. Individual and/or mass. Pharmaceuticals, Heavy Metals, Artificial Ingredients laden, Toxic Waste ‘Dumps’.
Dead. Buried or Burned.
One Book even mentions aide provided by Raptors.
the author sounds like he’s looking forward to a world population of 500,000,000 bug eating peons
of course, he’ll be a part of the filet mignon eating “elite”
Are these crickets even organic ?
Canadian government invests $8.5 million into insect production facility “to support sustainable food production”
On June 27, 2022, Agriculture and Agric-Food Canada announced that the federal government is investing up to $8.5 million into an insect production facility in London, Ontario.
https://westphaliantimes.com/canadian-government-invests-8-5-million-into-insect-production-facility-to-support-sustainable-food-production/
Did you see the article the other day showing a photo of Castro and Che together and implying they were fags? Castro was a joo who’s gate swings both ways. Does that make Fidelito (his spawm) a joo also?
Explains the beard.
For those defending modern ag, just look at the people around you. You reap what you sow. Enjoy your raceless, genderless, shapeless, cancerous grandchildren.
Meat! Cows! That’s it. Can’t be too difficult. The Indians lived with 60 million buffs and did okay without much effort. There is plenty of land for grazing, and which grazing improves the soil dramatically w/o petroleum fertilizer.
I eat beef almost exclusively. Beef, raw milk, some raw honey, a little fruit, coffee, and at 80, my health is excellent. I buy from a local rancher one-quarter beef at a time. See Dr. Saladino’s book, “The Carnivore Code.” Don’t eat leaves, they ain’t good for ya.