Will the Fertilizer Crisis Cause a Decline in Food Production? Yes and No

By Hart Hagan

Member of the EcoRestoration Alliance

The fertilizer crisis is top of the news.

Here is a video I saw recently that speaks to farmers and how they can transition from chemical nitrogen fertilizers to regenerative methods and natural soil fertility, which, if you can achieve it, is much cheaper and widens the profit margin. The Fertilizer Crisis Proves Your Extension Agent is Wrong

The sad thing about the fertilizer crisis is the unanimity with which people (i.e., reporters) seem to think there is no alternative, that this is the only way to grow food.

Another sad thing is that people don’t realize that chemical fertilizers degrade the soil year after year. It’s like pouring pollution into a waterway year after year and expecting the water to remain drinkable. The water has limits as to how much pollution it can absorb. And the soil has limits as to how much we can degrade it before it is completely useless for food production.

As for how much soil is lost to erosion annually, I’ve heard figures between 25 billion and 75 billion tons annually. That’s between 3 and 10 tons of topsoil every year for every one of 8 billion people worldwide.

How long can that go on? And what does it represent?

It represents mistreatment of the soil, via tillage, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, monocultures, etc.

The solution is the Five Principles of Soil Health, the first of which is “minimize disturbance.” Disturbance includes physical disturbance such as tillage and also chemical disturbance such as chemical fertilizers.

Why would you apply nitrogen fertilizers? Because all plants need nitrogen and because it gives you quick results. But nitrogen is 78% of the air we breathe. Above every acre of land is 34,000 tons of nitrogen. I get this information from Penn State, who is quick to point out that “this nitrogen is not directly usable by plants.”

Correct, but plants have relationships with nitrogen fixing bacteria. Famously, legumes fix a lot of nitrogen, but only because they provide habitat for nitrogen-fixing bacteria. But all plants have relationships with nitrogen fixing bacteria, according to the acclaimed soil scientist Christine Jones, of Australia.

But I digress.

The point is that farming can improve soil or degrade it. Improving soil means practicing the Five Principles of Soil Health.

In this regard, I highly recommend Dirt to Soil, by Gabe Brown. The book is by a farmer and for farmers. Although I am not a farmer, I am enthralled by the book mainly because of Gabe’s discussion of cover crops, also known as wildflowers, and also his discussion of soil health.

Here is Gabe’s best video, in my opinion. Here, he discusses all the main principles of soil health.

Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with Gabe Brown Part 1, The 5 Tenets of Soil Health

I have organized my gardening methods around the Five Principles of Soil Health. As such, I would not dream of tilling the ground. Nor would I dream of applying chemical fertilizers, because they sabotage soil fertility and because I can build my own soil fertility with a diversity of plants above ground, corresponding to a diversity of living roots below ground.

Nothing is better for soil than a diversity of living roots in the ground. It is a huge myth that plants take from the soil, that plants deplete soil nutrients. The fertilizer industry relies on this misunderstanding.

But plants give to the soil. Through photosynthesis they take carbon dioxide and water and turn it into sugars, and exude about ⅓ of those sugars through their roots into the ground, thus giving energy to the entire soil food web.

Bacteria and fungi come running to consume the energy infused into the soil by plant roots. Protozoa, nematodes and microarthropods get involved. They grow, they live, they eat, they drink, they excrete and they die, thus producing soil organic matter.

It’s this whole big thing.

But that’s what makes soil fertile.

That’s what makes soil able to deliver nutrients to the plants.

That’s what makes soil rich in soil organic matter, which makes the soil able to soak up rainfall. The soil then holds onto the rainfall, thus preventing both flooding and drought.

So, when your soil is good, it holds onto rainfall. Famously, water is life. We can water our crops and livestock via irrigation. Or we can rely on the rain, to the greatest extent possible.

Which do you think uses less carbon? Of course, rainfall uses less carbon than irrigation.

Nothing wrong with irrigation. But let’s take $100 bills and light them on fire. It would make as much sense as degrading our soil, causing flooding, drought, famine and all the rest. Oh, and water scarcity.

But if we improve our soil and improve the capacity of our soil to hold onto water, then streams reappear. That stream that had run dry, now it flows continuously. This happens in the world when people improve their soil.

Don’t get me started!!

Marvin Gaye sang, “Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.”

You can believe the “news” … sometimes. But news is selective. And they are always spinning the news to support the narratives that keep us in the dark.

Yes, there is a fertilizer crisis. No, this does not have to mean that people have to starve.

Check out my upcoming webinars at harthagan.com.

This includes Saving Our Forests from the Wildfire Industrial Complex — Wednesday, May 6–12:00–1:30 PM (ET)

Also: Water & Climate: The Untold Story — Monday, May 18–7:00–8:30 PM (ET)

Originally published at https://harthagan.substack.com.