As the entry says, there are many new plants under construction.

The reference to farmers going back to manure, is Gristmill's typical Green Bourgeois Wishful Thinking.

The truth is: more farmers than ever are using fertilizers and more than ever will be using them. Especially in Africa, where providing access to fertilizers is the top priority for both AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa), for the 500+ organisations that attended the African Fertilizer Summit, and for organisations like the FAO.

The high price of fertilizers is a temporary problem. Gristmill's wish that we use less of them is a dangerous, but luckily superfluous bourgeois wish, coming from some posh American suburb. Meanwhile, the world at large - not in this blog's periscope - has other thoughts.

Jonah: most definitely a temporary problem

The reference to farmers going back to manure, is Gristmill's typical Green Bourgeois Wishful Thinking.

fertilizers is a temporary problem. Gristmill's wish that we use less of them is a dangerous, but luckily superfluous bourgeois wish

It infuriates me when I read or hear comments that because people advocate for less environmentally and/or ecologically harmful behavior, they're called "elitist" or in this case "bourgeois."  The Earth is the most important thing, period.  Even if you have no empathy for other forms of life, you can't live without a somewhat healthy planet.

<quote>Jonas's comments evince a complete lack of any environmental or ecological morality or even ethics.</quote>

What on earth is "ecological morality"? Does it mean some ignorant bourgeois kid from the West offing Africans, telling them what to grow and not to eat bushmeat?

Go tell those starving Africans about "ecological morality" and fertilizers. I can guarantee you you'll end up as bushmeat.

Then please start up an NGO that grows organic and bio-food in Africa. I'm sure you'll be kicked out by the Africans from day one (like they did in Malawi, where they kicked dangerous ignoramuses like yourself out, with the result that they crawled out of food insecurity.)

I fully understand his wish

No you don't. From everything you write, it is clear that you are a typical white Anglosaxon patronizing racist - like most green types from the West - without a basic clue about the reality outside the confines of your backyard.

that people around the world who've been historically poor, especially since white people stole everything from them, be able to move themselves out of poverty.  But doing so at the expense of the natural environment is not a worthy goal, sorry.</quote>

Fertilizers save the environment. Or are you really so ignorant?

For each tonne of fertilizer invested in African agriculture, you can save 5 hectares of rainforest.

What's more, if you don't use fertilizers, the result is: more food insecurity, higher fertility rates, even more mouths to feed, and still higher pressures on the environment.

Ask the Europeans how they were capable of restoring their environment. It was only possible because of massive increases in agricultural productivity, thereby limiting the amount of land required to feed everyone.

But this is obviously way beyond you.

It infuriates me when I read or hear comments that because people advocate for less environmentally and/or ecologically harmful behavior, they're called "elitist" or in this case "bourgeois."  The Earth is the most important thing, period.  Even if you have no empathy for other forms of life, you can't live without a somewhat healthy planet.

I'm sorry, but ignorance and green bourgeois thinking is the biggest threat to the planet.

It is you we should be worried about.

My advice to you is: go get a degree in development economics, in tropical agriculture, in demographics, in history and in environmental economics, and before you get that, don't patronize anyone, because you're making a fool of yourself.

Jonas's comments evince a complete lack of any environmental or ecological morality or even ethics.

What on earth is "ecological morality"? Does it mean some ignorant bourgeois kid from the West offing Africans, telling them what to grow and not to eat bushmeat?

Go tell those starving Africans about "ecological morality" and fertilizers. I can guarantee you you'll end up as bushmeat.

Then please start up an NGO that grows organic and bio-food in Africa. I'm sure you'll be kicked out by the Africans from day one (like they did in Malawi, where they kicked dangerous ignoramuses like yourself out, with the result that they crawled out of food insecurity.)

I fully understand his wish

No you don't. From everything you write, it is clear that you are a typical white Anglosaxon patronizing racist - like most green types from the West - without a basic clue about the reality outside the confines of your backyard.

that people around the world who've been historically poor, especially since white people stole everything from them, be able to move themselves out of poverty.  But doing so at the expense of the natural environment is not a worthy goal, sorry.

Fertilizers save the environment. Or are you really so ignorant?

For each tonne of fertilizer invested in African agriculture, you can save 5 hectares of rainforest.

What's more, if you don't use fertilizers, the result is: more food insecurity, higher fertility rates, even more mouths to feed, and still higher pressures on the environment.

Ask the Europeans how they were capable of restoring their environment. It was only possible because of massive increases in agricultural productivity, thereby limiting the amount of land required to feed everyone.

But this is obviously way beyond you.

It infuriates me when I read or hear comments that because people advocate for less environmentally and/or ecologically harmful behavior, they're called "elitist" or in this case "bourgeois."  The Earth is the most important thing, period.  Even if you have no empathy for other forms of life, you can't live without a somewhat healthy planet.

I'm sorry, but ignorance and green bourgeois thinking is the biggest threat to the planet.

It is you we should be worried about.

My advice to you is: go get a degree in development economics, in tropical agriculture, in demographics, in history and in environmental economics, and before you get that, don't patronize anyone, because you're making a fool of yourself.

See, I don't have a problem if you want to grow organic food in your Anglosaxon country.

But please, don't tell others what to do. You have a tradition of racism, imperialism, warmongering, occupation, assassination, colonisation and genocide.

But there's no reason to perpetuate this tradition under the Green Banner. Is there?

Please stay home. The world doesn't want another round of Anglo-American racism directed at the world's poor.

Fertilizers save the environment.

It depends on your perspective here and what you define as the environment.  Yes, fertilizer applications can increase the productivity of a plot (supposedly "saving" rainforest), but only up to a point.  But fertilizers can also have negative effects on waterbodies and fisheries.  Should we blindly advocate increased fertilizer use, even when the consequence of doing so may reduce other food supplies?

To my knowledge, no one here is arguing for the complete abandonment of fertilizers.  But recognizing that increased fertilizer use can result in a trade-off with another food source, is it not reasonable to want to reduce or minimize the external effects of fertilizer use?

Since there are diminishing marginal returns on fertilizer application (and subsequently on each dollar spent), better soil science in agriculture could go a long way to determining optimal fertilization rates that are in sync with seasonal variations and other environmental factors.  

Right now there is a disconnect between the private costs of fertilizer applications and the other external costs, imposed on either other individuals or on the public.  Getting these costs more in-line, or allowing those affected by the external effects of fertilizer use to legally defend their property rights can only be a step in the right direction.

Jonas, your priorities are strictly money and other anthropocentric concerns, not the natural environment: "get a degree in development economics, in tropical agriculture, in demographics, in history and in environmental economics ..."  I suggest Jonas get a degree in wildlife biology and another in ecology, then spend some time with TRADITIONAL indigenous people before spouting his garbage.  I advocate for the Earth, and where you live and what color your skin is are not even considerations in that advocacy.

Furthermore, it is YOU who are racist, calling me one without knowing anything about me.  I have many non-white friends and have worked in the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements.  You are so blinded by your desire to get money that you have no care for the natural environment.  Fertilizers save the environment?  What a joke!  Agriculture is very bad for the natural environment, and anything artificial, like artificial fertilizers, makes agriculture even more harmful.

African soils are reported to be carbon poor, lack essential nutrients and tilth. The farmers there would do well to investigate the work that Oxfam and the Rodale institue is doing in africa to help farmers improve their soils. Looking into biochar might also help.

Fertilizers may be magic but that magic has a price; it ruins the soil.

Put the Carbon Back

African soils are reported to be carbon poor, lack essential nutrients and tilth. The farmers there would do well to investigate the work that Oxfam and the Rodale institue is doing in africa to help farmers improve their soils. Looking into biochar might also help.

Fertilizers may be magic but that magic has a price; it ruins the soil.

Anyone with the most basic knowledge of Sub-Saharan African agricultures knows that soil depletion there is the result of growing crops without fertilizers.

That is why the top priority for the Alliance for   a Green Revolution is to improve access to fertilizers.

African farmers have been mining the soil for decades, and they keep moving on, invading new land after one plot has been depleted.

The use of fertilizers slows down this process radically. That is why it is a top priority for all agricultural organisations working in Africa - from the AGRA, to the CGIAR to the FAO and the African Fertilizer Summit.

So please, people, let's stick to reality.

A lot of green paternalist commments here again

Does it mean some ignorant bourgeois kid from the West offing Africans, telling them what to grow and not to eat bushmeat?

Go tell those starving Africans about "ecological morality" and fertilizers. I can guarantee you you'll end up as bushmeat.

it is clear that you are a typical white Anglosaxon

Fertilizers save the environment. Or are you really so ignorant?

Environmental Risks of Increased Fertilizer Use

Increased fertilizer use is not a panacea and, in fact, if used inappropriately it can create environmental problems of its own, as seen in developed and developing countries from the United States to India. Environmental problems that have been associated with the misuse and over use of fertilizers include:
• Eutrophication (nutrient pollution that depletes water of oxygen and can kill aquatic life) of lakes and coastal waters by nitrogen and phosphorus run off;
• Build up of nitrogen that leads to acidification of soil (this can foster the release of elements like aluminum, which are toxic to roots and can lead to yield declines in crops such as sorghum);
• Increases in toxic chemicals in the soil through impurities left in fertilizer;
• Over-application of fertilizers can kill soil organisms, which harms the soilâ€^TMs ability to retain and recycle nutrients;
• Emission of nitrogen gasses into the air can contribute to global ozone depletion and greenhouse gasses.

Ask the Europeans how they were capable of restoring their environment. It was only possible because of massive increases in agricultural productivity, thereby limiting the amount of land required to feed everyone.
But this is obviously way beyond you.

I'm sorry, but ignorance and green bourgeois thinking is the biggest threat to the planet.

My advice to you is: go get a clue!

Naturescene, I advocate complete elimination of chemical fertilizers, as well as pesticides.  Even completely organic agriculture is ecologically harmful; the way to live in harmony with nature is as hunter-gatherers.

So I was right, I knew it. What we hear speaking here is a posh, well-fed, luxuriously opulent bourgeois kid from some Anglosaxon capital, having the luxury of being able to fantasize about going back to nature.

I'm sure you also advocate the destruction of 5 billion people, so we have enough Lebensraum to go back to hunting and gathering.

Or I'm sure you will be buying up vast tracts of rainforests, so the hunter-gathere natives there can be protected like an exotic species, while what they want is progress, modernity and food. You will be calling them 'indigenous peoples' and force them to remain in poverty, so you can have your coffee table photo-book about primitive natives and pristine rainforests.

The obscenity of these reactionaries - these green paternalists - reaches unimaginable levels.

manure...folks at Grist want it poured directly on our food

Anyone can visit the AFS website to check for themselves what the purpose of this most obvious summit really is:

What is the Africa Fertilizer Summit's Purpose?

Purpose of the Summit--NEPAD, the African Union and IFDC are implementing the Summit to increase the awareness of the role that fertilizer can play in stimulating sustainable ... pro-poor productivity growth in African agriculture and to discuss approaches for rapidly increasing efficient fertilizer use by African smallholder farmers.

Goal of the Summit-- to build a consensus around the key issues in increasing fertilizer use in Africa and agree on a strategy for developing an Africa Fertilizer Action Plan that will accelerate the access of millions of poor farmers to fertilizer and other complementary inputs to help them raise their farm production, ... achieve food security, ... and reduce poverty.  

And:

-Reducing poverty
-Achieving food security
-Raising farm production
-Pro-poor Policies
-Sustainability

Really don't interest you, do they?

Here you go:

Africa Fertilizer Summit - speaks for itself, methinks.

Also read the text at the opening page, you'll get a clue.

But go ahead, keep fantasizing about reality on other continents you so obviously know nothing about.

-Reducing poverty
-Achieving food security
-Raising farm production
-Pro-poor Policies
-Sustainability

in Africa.

500+ of the world's agricultural experts, pro-poor organisations, development institutions are. You are not.

So please be so mature as to state this from the start, next time. That way, we may get more out of this discussion.

Thank you.

Are you actually making accusations about the maturity of others? LOL....Too easy! Watch that vessel pokin out of your temple, Jonah.

In any event, I have empirically tested multicultured organic farm productivity vs. monoculture productivity and found them comparable on a per acre basis. Of course the organic farm required much more hand labor because we used compost and hand harvesting instead of artificial sprayed fertilizers and harvesters.

My point is that artificial fertilizers are really only necessary if you follow the agribusiness farming model.

Ahh well, you kids have fun! ;)

If you continue to do what you've always done you'll continue to get what you've always got. - Yogi Berra

You have now openly admitted that you are not interested in:
-Reducing poverty
-Achieving food security
-Raising farm production
-Pro-poor Policies
-Sustainability

Analyzing whether organic agriculture can provide as much yield per acre as chemical agriculture for the purpose of convincing people to switch to organic is fine, but what's really needed is a large reduction of ALL agriculture, because it's all unnatural and harmful to the natural environment.

Improving Soils and Land Productivity: Sub-Saharan Africa contains large tracts of degraded lands with extremely low agricultural productivity, especially in the Sahel. For instance, average crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa are 1.5 tons per hectare for maize, 0.8 tons per hectare for sorghum, and 0.7 tons per hectare for millet (as compared to about 2.5 tons of maize per hectare in many other parts of the world). This is due to poor soil quality, which occurs when soil organic carbon is lost to the atmosphere, leading to desertification. Estimates of the affected area range from 3.47 to 3.97 billion hectares (Lal et al., 1998). The process can be reversed through improved agricultural practices such as conservation tillage, soil erosion control, establishment of appropriate shrubs and woody perennials, soil fertility enhancement, and crop residue management.(bolding mine-Pang.)  These not only restore soil quality by increasing its organic content but also aid in mitigating climate change by returning more carbon to the soil. Thus, carbon sequestration activities that improve soil carbon content have the potential to improve productivity of large tracts of land in Africa. The USAID funded Sequestration of Carbon in Soil Organic Matter (SOCSOM) Project in Senegal is carrying out further research on this issue (see Table 1).-from CARBON SEQUESTRATION PROJECTS IN AFRICA: POTENTIAL BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES TO SCALING UP

If those African soils are so great why aren't they black and rich? It's because they are low in carbon due to tropical or subropical climates and poor return on carbon to the soils. A farmer who looks at his feet and sees yellow or red dirt is at a disadvantage to a farmer who sees black soil. Mineral or nitrate fetilizers cannot replace the tilth, microbial activity or water retention of high carbon organic or biochar enhanced soils.

here too:

from: TRAPPING CARBON IN SOIL KEY FOR PROTECTING GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY, DEALING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE
<snip>
Evidence shows that following such practices greatly increases and sustains crop yields.

Lal cited an 18-year experiment in Kenya: Farm fields managed by regular farming practices - tilling the land, using no fertilizer, leaving fields bare in the non-growing season - produced about 1 ton of maize and beans per hectare (a hectare is about the size of two football fields). But fields treated with manure, planted with cover crops and covered with mulch yielded six times that amount.(bolding mine, also ouch- Pang.)

"This is the type of quantum jump in crop yield needed at the continental scale to ensure food security in Sub-Saharan Africa," said Lal, who is also a professor of natural resources. "Soil needs enough carbon in order to hold water and nutrients and to grow crops efficiently.

"But completely removing crop residue for animal fodder and fuel is the norm in many African and Asian countries," he continued. "This drastically reduces soil carbon levels, and we cannot achieve global food security without returning crop residues and putting carbon back in soil. Both are necessary for improving soil quality."

So um, Africans can learn from other Africans who are already doing this or sit and wait for the grain ships from never-never land to arrive. We're paving our farmland here so don't think we're going to always have extra.

Nobody gets their own facts.

Put the Carbon Back

Don't worry, high oil prices...

...will help slow down the growth, since most fertilizers are petrol-based.

Name me one fertilizer that has petroleum as its feedstock.

I can name you 25 of 25 that don't.

The ignorance just keeps accumulating here.

Unlike Greenfire8, I'm beginning to lose confidence about Gristmill readers' capacity to even begin to start to initiate a beginning of a comprehension of basic facts.

A fundamental question is, should we destroy even more of the Earth in order to temporarily feed our already gross human overpopulation, or should we instead be strongly pushing one-child-family policies EVERYWHERE until human population is lowered to an ecologically balanced level?

Population is the key issue; but pushing for your recipe is truly catastrophic and will perpetuate the population explosion.

In 2050, under a medium population scenario, we max out at 9 billion people. After that we stabilize and over the longer term global population declines.

But that is only so if we modernize agriculture in the developing world. If we do not invest in Green Revolution agriculture in Africa, then we will keep accumulating billions more.

So it is entirely rational to improve agricultural production, the classic way, because that is the fastest way to reducing fertility rates.

If we force Africans to go organic or to keep stimulating their primitive, low productivity systems, the result is continuous food insecurity, consequent continued high fertility rates and a continued population explosion - with all the catastrophic environmental effects this entails.

If, on the other hand, we help Africans speed up the modernisation process on the continent - which implies modern intensive and highly efficient agriculture - then population stabilizes, and so will the effects on the environment.

Applying post-modern bourgeois notions stemming from countries that went to the Demographic Revolution half a century ago, to a continent that is not even close to starting this transition, is extremely stupid.

That's also why no development thinker, sociologist, agricultural economist or agronomist takes your reasoning seriously. They all do take the Green Revolution approach seriously.

Jonas-"Name me one fertilizer that has petroleum as its feedstock.

I can name you 25 of 25 that don't.

The ignorance just keeps accumulating here.

Unlike Greenfire8, I'm beginning to lose confidence about Gristmill readers' capacity to even begin to start to initiate a beginning of a comprehension of basic facts."

Virtually all nitrate fertilizers are produced using geologically sourced methane. Virtually all other mineral fertilizers require the use of diesel powered heavy equipment and shipping to produce and deliver. Those are fossil fuels and while not technically petroleum their costs will rise with petroleum as CH4 is used to replace heavier hydrocarbons.

It is very clear that the "fertilizers" that you think Africa needs are the kinds that arrive on container ships and bulk carriers and not dried kelp hauled inland on a donkey cart. African peasant farmers are being pushed off the fossil-fuel island if you haven't noticed. It's tough for them to afford anything with petrol as a source. They need ag systems using local knowledge and materials.

Could you please use "The Google" a little bit before you start spouting about chemical ag to eco-geeks. It does speed things up and deprives keyboard warriors of cheap and easy smackdowns. Make them earn it.

Put the Carbon Back

Go for it; but please make sure you are living in a large African city where the starving mobs can reach you and discuss the effects of your policies.

If you want to feed people look to the Cuban model. They are the only third world country that has attained full literacy, medical care and food independance. The people there are skinny but they are FED.

Put the Carbon Back

Pangolin: Mineral or nitrate fetilizers cannot replace the tilth, microbial activity or water retention of high carbon organic or biochar enhanced soils.

Really?  What's your evidence of that?  The facts show the opposite: China now has at least 500,000 fewer people because of its one-child-family policy, which has been very effective.

Global human population will only stabilize "if we modernize agriculture in the developing world. If we do not invest in Green Revolution agriculture in Africa, then we will keep accumulating billions more ... If we force Africans to go organic or to keep stimulating their primitive, low productivity systems, the result is continuous food insecurity, consequent continued high fertility rates and a continued population explosion ... If, on the other hand, we help Africans speed up the modernisation process on the continent - which implies modern intensive and highly efficient agriculture - then population stabilizes, and so will the effects on the environment."

This is a complete fabrication and has nothing to do with reality.  The only things that have ever been shown to reduce birth rates are empowerment of women and China's one-child-family policy.  The rest are nothing but lies by both the left and the right.

Virtually all nitrate fertilizers are produced using geologically sourced methane. Virtually all other mineral fertilizers require the use of diesel powered heavy equipment and shipping to produce and deliver. Those are fossil fuels and while not technically petroleum their costs will rise with petroleum as CH4 is used to replace heavier hydrocarbons.

So you admit that you cannot name one fertilizer the feedstock of which is petroleum. That's normal, because there are none such fertilizers.

Nitrate fertilizers are made from natural gas or coal. Of which there is plenty.

An ammonia factory runs on natural gas or coal, not on oil.

The other base fertilizers are made from rocks.

I do understand you're trying to create a crisis feel around the energy intensity of mining. But that's really just because you can, isn't it? The fundamentals of phosphate and potassium mining are okay. Many mining operations utilize electricity.

If Africa's leaders think the "Green Revolution" is going to work to quell the food riots more's the pity. "Green Starvation" is more the effect it has had on India, Egypt, Bangledesh and Pakistan. Google: "food riots" or "farmer suicides"

Go for it; but please make sure you are living in a large African city where the starving mobs can reach you and discuss the effects of your policies.

If you want to feed people look to the Cuban model. They are the only third world country that has attained full literacy, medical care and food independance. The people there are skinny but they are FED.

Look, I agree that the Green Revolution has lifted 2 billion people out of death. And that today, as a result of rapid industrialisation, there are a few thousand farmers getting into trouble because of matters unrelated to the fundamentals of the Green Revolution.

So the balance is: 2 billion versus a few thousand.

I'm not sure if this puts things in perspective for you.

As you know, scientists and researchers are now going beyond the Green Revolution where it already was implemented successfully, and are investing in the socalled 'Evergreen Revolution' - the second round.

Give them some slack. They've already saved billions of lives. They will save the next few billion too.

In Africa, we're in phase one.

Every short term gain has long term consequences, so the decision to take a gain must be weighed against consequences that might last for years or even longer.  Killing the soil for a few years of spectacular crops just creates wasteland or desert that is very limited in value and won't feed anyone.

Second: According the the IFA (International Fertilizer Industry Association, who may be inclined to favor fertilizers a little). http://www.fertilizer.org/ifa/statistics/indicators/ind_r ...

The main fertilizer raw materials are energy and hydrocarbon feedstock, phosphate rock, sulphur and potassium salts.

I think that implies that hydrocarbon feedstock, specifically natural gas, is an important component in many fertilizers. No I cannot (without more research) name a specific industrial fertilizer that uses hydrocarbons, but neither can I name an industrial fertilizer at all.

Third and finally: There are techniques that are specifically oriented towards poorer countries, including those in Africa. Biointensive agriculture has proven effective in producing more food per energy input and being more reliable than conventional methods. These non-industrial methods also contribute to sustainable community, and not just as buzzwords. The Common Ground Project in Kenya is one example of an ongoing project that has greatly benefitted the natives through non-industrial methods. The success of this and other programs in less industrialized countries is in part because it does not ignore the well-being of the natives (in fact it gives responsibility of the project to the residents of the area, Jonas is right that foreign control of projects is not a good idea) and addresses anthropocentric issues like AIDS and education. Strong native communities with a hand in their own future and not some national or international government are essential, but they must also understand that care of their land is necessary to long term prosperity and even survival. The fact that the green community and the humanitarian community are at odds over foreign policy shows that either one, or both, have not thoroughly researched the issue. Both environmental sustainability and alleviation of humanitarian issues must be achieved; otherwise neither can be.

</preach>

It contains some bias (obviously, given the source), but if ya read closely, you'll realize just how much they consume.

Specifically, alomst 5% of all natural gas stocks alone are used for ammonia production, almost entirely for fertilizers.

And production of fertilizers accounted for more than 2% of the world's total energy consumption...

...it doesn't sound like much, until ya realize that's alomst as much as the state of California consumes.

-The production of anhydrous ammonia is based on reacting nitrogen with hydrogen under high temperatures and pressures. The source of nitrogen is the air, the hydrogen being derived from a variety of raw materials, including water, crude oil, coal and natural gas hydrocarbons.

Energy
-today natural gas is the feedstock of choice. The use of natural gas is accelerating rapidly, because of economic factors but also and increasingly due to environmental pressures, which work against other fossil fuels....However, processes for ammonia production can use a wide range of energy sources. Thus, even when oil and gas supplies eventually dwindle...

(emphasis mine)

But that doesn't do away the fact that its economy is down the drains, that Castro has destroyed the country's sugarcane economy (when the Soviets were still around, and Cuba thrived, it was the world's largest sugar exporter.)

So by all means, go live in Cuba, if you think that's a successful model.

A good thing about Cuba's new leader is that one of the first things he did, very recently, was to allow farmers to farm in private again. The results have been amazing; for the first time in decades, Cuba is capable of combating rural food poverty.

But this is only a start. Once Cuba gets its act together (that is: when dictator Fidel Castro dies), it will go back to becoming a normal left-wing state, with some dignity.

Fidel Castro destroyed Cuba's world leading sugarcane sector (more than half of all mills were closed in under 10 years time.) Luckily, his brother is going to upgrade and reopen them (for ethanol, amongst other things.) And the Cuban people may begin to thrive a bit again.

In any case, I'm not going to stop you from living in Habana, with its delicious colonial squalor which attracts so many wealthy European tourists. Please go roof-garden there, organically. I'm sure you'll have fun. And I'm sure you'll come back after a few months, with a great story to tell your opulent white Anglosaxon kids.

Ad hominems are necessary when they're necessary. You really deserved one.

Now you're casting your vote for more coal.

Greenfire8, I'm not defending anything, I'm just correcting your mistakes. I understand you feel uncomfortable about this.

You said nitrate fertilizers are made from oil.

I said they're not. They're made from natural gas and coal.

I'm not saying they can't be made from oil (which is what you really want to see happening, obviously). It's just not being done at the moment, because it's way too expensive.

To correct you further. No, nuclear power is not used in the production of fertilizers. Hydropower is, though, in a famous ammonia factory in Norway.

But I won't bother you again with the basics of the ammonia industry. You're not very apt at learning, that much is clear.

There are many solutions to certain problems, and he appears to have seized upon the idea that fertilizer which undoubtedly increases agricultural yield is one answer to overcome poverty.  

Other solutions to the same problem are proposed by other posters, like restricting population growth, industrialization, medicine, et al, but those solutions can be interpreted as just more paternalism.  Jonas obviously feels that self-sufficiency is the immediate answer that can easily be accomplished.  And he's right, of course.  Pie in the sky has never fed anyone.  Food is actually the prime mover of all human advancement (check out the diversion of food to ethanol production and the concurrent rise in price and reduction in supply from people to the internal combustion engine) and Jonas has a point to make.

My own opinion is that the problem of Global Warming has started to overtake the seriousness of any other problem facing us today.  All tropical lands will face accelerated desertification and the subsequent migration of their populations northward,and that will happen sooner than we think.  

Des Emery

Which of my mistakes are you correcting exactly? I never said anything about nitrate fertilizers being made from oil. I did however just quote the International Fertilizer Industry Association, who does in fact include petroleum hydrocarbons as a component. Now I know you need to slow down.

I also never said nuclear is used. I satirically cited it as one of the few unsustainable energies you have left to champion.

Keep fishin Jonah....

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05EFD71E ...
Power Trader Tied to Bush Finds Washington All Ears; May, 2001

Curtis Hébert Jr., Washington's top electricity regulator, said he had barely settled into his new job this year when he had an unsettling telephone conversation with Kenneth L. Lay, the head of the nation's largest electricity trader, the Enron Corporation.

Mr. Hébert, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said that Mr. Lay, a close friend of President Bush's, offered him a deal: If he changed his views on electricity deregulation, Enron would continue to support him in his new job.

Mr. Lay has been one of Mr. Bush's largest campaign contributors, and no other energy company gave more money to Republican causes last year than Enron.

Mr. Lay is not shy about voicing his opinion or flexing his political muscle. He has transformed the Houston-based Enron from a sleepy natural-gas company into a $100 billion energy giant with global reach, trading electricity in all corners of the world and owning a multibillion-dollar power project in India. He has also led the push to deregulate the nation's electricity markets.

Senior Bush administration officials said they welcomed Mr. Lay's input but did not always embrace it: President Bush backed away from curbing carbon-dioxide emissions, an effort supported by Enron, which had looked to trade emission rights as part of its energy business.

Diesel, herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers are mostly made from petroleum and natural gas feedstocks.  Prices of these are going up, worldwide demand is increasing, supplies are finite and decreasing.  Regardless of the number of new fertilizer plants in the works, we are looking at skyrocketing costs of inputs, which are the only costs most large scale agriculture can control.

When soils are chemically fertilized and sprayed with poisons all the little micro organisms that create natural soil fertility disappear, organic matter decreases, natural mineralization declines.  We end up with dead dirt and lousy food.

Organic farming, once the health of the soil has been restored from 50 years of being nuked with chemicals, can actually outperform "modern" practices.

Read http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/nwl/2007/2007-2-leole ...

It works in Iowa.  The spread between the cost of inputs and the market price of whatever farmers are growing is what makes profits, not just high yields.  

Cheers.

Jonas obviously feels that self-sufficiency is the immediate answer that can easily be accomplished.  And he's right, of course.  Pie in the sky has never fed anyone.  Food is actually the prime mover of all human advancement (check out the diversion of food to ethanol production and the concurrent rise in price and reduction in supply from people to the internal combustion engine) and Jonas has a point to make.

It's good to see that at least some readers have not lost their minds.

I have nothing against people from London or New York who want do to some organic farming in their free time.

I was just saying that there is also a world out there.

That pretty much sums up the problem with people like Jonas: the only life they respect is human life.  Not only is this totally immoral, its ultimate conclusion would also be the end of human life.  Let's consider the facts, as opposed to the rants of an angry person who displays all the characteristics of a rage-a-holic:

First, humans are grossly overpopulated.  This includes white people Jonas, so please don't start with your racist garbage.  This overpopulation is doing great harm to the rest of the planet.

Second, the human race fits the medical definition of being a cancerous tumor on the Earth: out-of-control growth consuming its host.  So ecologically, not only are humans not useful in the web of life, they're a major detriment that the entire planet would be better off without, with the exception of the few remaining hunter-gatherers.

In order to keep this cancerous tumor going, and even expanding, people like Jonas support further destruction of the Earth with things like chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  Unfortunately, Jonas's opinions are probably those of the vast majority of humans, which is why our planet is being destroyed right in front of us with no meaningful actions taken to stop it.

An argument could be made that organic production in Africa and other marginal climates should be allowed to be certified even when small amounts of N fertilizer have been used. The details of how much would be OK under organic rules need to be worked out using science.

In any case, traditional organic soil-building practices including cover cropping and use of animal manures should play a crucial role in greening Africa and not be so glibly dismissed as somehow bourgeois and privileged!

It is important to improve soil quality in the form of organic content (carbon) as well as to provide the nutrients needed by the plants. Otherwise the soil will all blow away as noted by Ron Castle.

It is not true that synthetic N inputs will increase organic matter in soil via increased residue inputs. A recent paper shows that while corn yields increased dramatically under 50 years of synthetic N application, thereby returning more residues to the soil, soil organic matter levels decreased over this same time period (Khan et al. 2007. The myth of nitrogen fertilization for soil carbon sequestration).

At the same time, soil organic matter levels increase under long-term organic management even under higher tillage levels (which theoretically should destroy organic matter). What's the difference? Organic management returns more to the soil in forms that it needs.

Soils need carbon in order to orchestrate the complex living processes that support optimal plant production. Soils do not need N fertilizers, plants do. Pay as much attention to the soil as you do to the plant and you will get high yields that are sustainable and don't degrade the resource base. This is true anywhere in the world.