Section:GDN 1N PaGe:4 Edition Date:190907 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/9/2019 15:41 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian Saturday 7 September 2019
(^4) News
Phosphate fertiliser ‘crisis’ is a threat
to world’s food supply, scientists warn
Damian Carrington
Environment editor
The world faces an “imminent crisis”
in the supply of phosphate, a ferti-
liser that underpins the world’s food
supply, scientists have warned.
Phosphate is an essential mineral
for all life on Earth and is added to
farmers’ fi elds in huge quantities. But
rock phosphate is a fi nite resource and
the biggest supplies are mined in polit-
ically unstable places, posing risks to
the many countries that have little or
no reserves.
Phosphate use has quadrupled in
the last 50 years as the global popu-
lation has grown. The date when it is
estimated to run out gets closer with
each new analysis of demand, with
some scientists projecting that that
moment could come as soon as a few
decades from now.
Researchers say that without phos-
phate and nitrogen humanity could
produce only half the food it does ,
though nitrogen is essentially limit-
less as it makes up almost 80% of the
atmosphere.
“Phosphate supply is potentially a
very big problem,” said Martin Black-
well , the lead author of a new study,
who works at Rothamsted Research ,
an agricultural research centre in the
UK. “The population is growing and we
are going to need more food.”
At current rates of use, many
countries were set to run out of their
domestic supply in the next gen-
eration, including the US, China and
India, he said. Morocco and the Moroc-
can-occupied territory of Western
Sahara host by far the largest reserve,
with China, Algeria and Syria the next
biggest, together representing more
than 80% of global rock phosphate.
“In a few years’ time it could be a
political issue, with some countries
eff ectively controlling the produc-
tion of food by having control of rock
phosphate supplies,” Blackwell said.
causing widespread pollution that
leads to dead zones in rivers and
seas. In 2015, research published in
the journal Science cited phosphorus
pollution as one of the most serious
problems facing the planet , ahead of
climate change.
The new study, published in the
journal Frontiers of Agricultural Sci-
ence and Engineering , s ays: “The
continued supply of phosphate fer-
tilisers that underpin global food
production is an imminent crisis.”
It notes that an estimate of the
remaining years of rock phosphate
supply fell from 300 to 259 in the last
three years, as demand rose.
“If the estimated remaining number
of years’ supply continues to decline at
this rate, it could be argued that all sup-
plies will be exhausted by 2040,” the
scientists write. While this scenario is
unlikely, it does highlight that immi-
nent, fundamental changes in the
global phosphorus trade, use and recy-
cling eff orts will be necessary. “This
is especially pertinent in China, India
and the US, the three countries with
the largest populations on the planet,
which rely on rock phosphate to feed
their people,” they write.
In 2014 the European commis-
sion declared phosphate a “critical
raw material” – an essential resource
with signifi cant risk to supply. In the
EU only Finland has any reserves and
most phosphate is imported into the
bloc from Morocco, Algeria, Russia,
Israel and Jordan. “The EU is highly
dependent on regions currently sub-
ject to political crisis,” a commission
position paper says.
Van Ittersum said recycling phos-
phate from animal and human waste
was vital but would take time to
implement as new technology and
regulation would be needed to ensure
contamination and infection of food
crops did not occur.
Blackwell said reducing use was
also crucial. The soil tests available to
farmers were not advanced, he said,
so farmers added extra phosphate to
be sure. This meant there was excess
phosphate in most agricultural soils.
But most of this soil phosphate is
bound up in organic molecules and
inaccessible to plants. Scientists are
using genetic modifi cation to create
new plant varieties that can access
this phosphate. Van Ittersum said such
research was urgent.
Sweden loses
highest peak
as global
heating takes
toll on glacier
Jon Henley
The mountain peak known to Swedes
as their country’s highest can no longer
lay claim to the title owing to global
heating, scientists have confi rmed, as
the glacier at its summit shrinks amid
soaring Arctic temperatures.
“This is quite a symbol,” said Gun-
hild Ninis Rosqvist, a Stockholm
University geography professor who
has been measuring the glacier annu-
ally for several years. “A very obvious,
very clear signal to everyone in Swe-
den that things are changing.”
In the far north of Sweden, about
95 miles (150km) inside the Arctic
circle, Kebnekaise has two peaks: a
southern, glacier-covered summit
accessible to suitably equipped hik-
ers, and a northern neighbour that is
free of ice but reserved for experienced
mountaineers.
Since they were fi rst measured in
1880, the southern peak has been the
higher. But when Ninis Rosqvist and
her team took this year’s measure-
ments, at the end of the summer melt
on 3 September, the northern peak was
1.2 metres higher at 2,096.8 metres.
“We suspected this was probably
the case last year ,” Ninis Rosqvist told
the Guardian from the Tarfala research
station at the foot of the massif. “But
unfortunately we could not be precise
enough. Now we can say with cer-
tainty: our measurements are accurate
to within a couple of centimetres.”
The scientist said the height of
Kebnekaise’s southern peak was the
lowest on record : 24 metres lower than
in the 1960s. “Almost all the shrink-
age has been in the past two decades,
when the glacier has lost an average of
one metre a year,” she said.
Since the glacier was likely to
expand again with winter snow and
ice, the southern peak could briefl y
recover its ranking, Ninis Rosqvist
said. “It will keep changing for a while.
But the trend is now fi rmly estab-
lished, and very clear ,” she said.
Sweden recorded its hottest ever
May and July temperatures in 2018,
soaring to more than 10C above nor-
mal. With wildfi res burning across the
Arctic, the Kebnekaise glacier shrank
by almost four metres.
Although this July was not as hot
after an unusually cool start to the
month, the village of Markusvinsa in
the far north of the country recorded
34.8C on 26 July – the highest temper-
ature ever recorded north of the Arctic
circle in Sweden.
The news may have been expected,
but the offi cial downgrading of the
southern peak was still “emotionally
quite something”, Ninis Rosqvist said.
“The mountains are changing so fast
- higher temperatures, less snow, win-
▲ The Kebnekaise mountain in 2015. Soaring temperatures have caused its southern peak to shrink PHOTOGRAPH: ALAMY ter rain.”
“There should be a lot more eff ort
being put in so we are ready to deal
with it. It is time to wake up. It is one
of the most important issues in the
world today.”
Prof Martin van Ittersum, of Wage-
ningen University in the Netherlands,
said problems would begin before the
mineral was exhausted: “Well before
we run out of phosphate, the resource
may become much more expensive.”
Potential solutions include recy-
cling phosphate from human sewage,
manure and abattoir waste, new plant
breeds that can draw the mineral from
the soil more eff ectively and better soil
tests to help end its over-application.
Excessive use of phosphate is not
only running down supplies but also80%
Proportion of global rock phosphate
held by Morocco and Western
Sahara, China, Algeria and Syria‘The mountains
are changing so
fast – with higher
temperatures, less
snow, winter rain’Gunhild Ninis Rosqvist
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