[Pops]

Hi donshan, good post and an important question.

Short term I think pstarr is right, although I’m not sure it is the correct solution for the security issues you raise.

Americans enjoy extremely cheap food (it seems I’ve said that 10 times lately) and farmers endure extremely low incomes. Their margins will be squeezed even further next year than this and I expect to see some marginal land go out of production temporarily. Then the prices will rise some and they’ll go back in.

Perhaps that land (and the not-so-marginal as well) will eventually go to a grazing/grain rotation – really this is the only solution long term IMO; grain, grass/legume, legume, grain.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'p')otash isn't nitrogen. its potassium, a metal.

We will import nitrogen as a fertilizer because it is more stable than nitrogen gas or LNG and ships easily.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('donshan', 'I') was not suggesting there will ever be a world shortage of nitrogen fertilizer and ammonia. It is made by the Haber process which combines Nitrogen from the air with hydrogen. Hydrogen can be made many ways.

N2 + 3H2 = 2 NH3

The problem I am raising is the economics of a free market are driving US companies out of business and farmers are being squeezed too by the PRICE of our energy. Other countries can make ammonia cheaper than we can.



I was raising the strategic security question, "is it our national interest to let all our ammonia production plants in the USA be eliminated and outsourced overseas?"

[Liamj]

Am curious as to why some don't think 'there will ever be a world shortage of nitrogen fertilizer and ammonia', its an energy-consuming process and we have energy supply problems. If 50% of US car fleet switched to NG then i think the problem will become clear v.quickly.

Read somewhere too that Katrina+Rita knocked out a good chunk of US's fertiliser production capacity, which could have dark consequences on food production globally (cos US big fertiliser exporter, correct?). Org ag may or may not be able to match conv.ag yeilds, but certainly can't do so from a standing start with no change in plant varieties & cultiv.methods (therefore less fertiliser = substantially less food).

A little trawling on Potash/K found this
http://www.ipipotash.org/presentn/aspivoccp.html
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s indicated in figure 2, fertilizer use in Western European countries became increasingly unbalanced. This applies also to other industrialised countries and even more to the developing ones. The NK ratio in the countries of EU-15 depreciated from a balanced ratio of 1:1 in the 60ies to a NK ratio of 1:0.54 in the 80ies and ultimately to a current NK ratio of 1:0.37. In other words, farmers in EU apply 3 times more N fertilizers than potash. The global trend is similar, the NK ratio went down from 1:0.74 in the 60ies to currently 1:0.27.

On the other hand, plants absorb and remove both nutrients at a fairly balanced ratio. Consequently, with continuing imbalance in the use of fertilizer nutrients, soil K mining has to be expected. Figure 3 shows correspondingly that the apparent K balance (K removal by crops minus K use with potash fertilizers) declined with time and reached negative values, which indicates soil K mining (data source: FAO, 2003). The situation in developing countries is much worse than in the European countries.

More detailed calculations confirm this trend. VOSTAL (2003) reported that the K balance of arable soils in the Czech Republic decreased from +9 kg/ha K during the pre-reform period to currently -27 kg/ha K even the K input from organic manure became a multiple of the input from potash. In Germany the K balance has declined since 1980 from 88 kg/ha with an annual rate of 5.5% to 37 kg/ha in 1995 and should have reached a negative value if the trend would persist. Arable farms in Germany had already in 1995 a negative K balance of -3 kg/ha (BACH et al., 1997). In comparison, Vietnam and China have currently a negative K balance of about -60 kg/ha with a trend to go worse (SYERS et al., 2002).
(Note that that is an industry source, but is supported by other sources.)

[GoIllini]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Liamj', 'A')m curious as to why some don't think 'there will ever be a world shortage of nitrogen fertilizer and ammonia', its an energy-consuming process and we have energy supply problems. If 50% of US car fleet switched to NG then i think the problem will become clear v.quickly.

Read somewhere too that Katrina+Rita knocked out a good chunk of US's fertiliser production capacity, which could have dark consequences on food production globally (cos US big fertiliser exporter, correct?). Org ag may or may not be able to match conv.ag yeilds, but certainly can't do so from a standing start with no change in plant varieties & cultiv.methods (therefore less fertiliser = substantially less food).

[donshan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Liamj', 'W')hy the decline in K use, you ask? Try cost+availability - N fertilisers can be made, often co-produced with fuels & other chemicals, whereas K fert.'s have to be mined, from ever decreasing deposits (sound familiar?).

I think K is likely to be limiting long before N, arguably already is.

Both are economic AND security AND population issues.

[Pops]

But to go back to the original point regarding Nitrogen, there are many plants that fix N in the soil, from peas to beans to honey locust trees to clovers – there was no Haber process for eons and epochs proceeding the last century. In fact animals only utilize a small fraction of their nitrogen uptake and when allowed to graze on the original field return most N back to the field.

If you care to increase the discussion further, consider the amount of amendments required to keep a soil dependant on N, in the Ph range of the desired crops. I think you’ll find in many places a far greater volume of lime and other minerals goes to control acidity than any other.

[donshan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GoIllini', '3'). The Haber process isn't the only way of making nitrogen fertilizer; it's simply the cheapest. Peak Oil and peak nat. gas aren't energy crises; they're fossil fuel crises. The hydrogen for the creation of ammonia fertilizer can easily be gotten from wind turbines and water, if necessary.

Peak U-238 is, even using Matt Savinar's most pessimistic figures, centuries off. Most respected scientists in the nuclear field think it's at least 10,000 years off. Some people think Matt Savinar's crazy; some people on here think that respected scientists are crazy; I'm posting both figures.

[Liamj]

True Pops, there are a host of recognised soil imbalances being treated, with lime being one of the bulkiest. Incidentally, isn't excess N a leading cause of acidification? So theres a faint silver lining, just don't ask me how we're going to ship and spread all these industrial ag. inputs.

On N fixing plants, yes they're great for N fixing (and for stock forage in drylands) but they can't begin to replace synthetic fertilisers without sacrificing say 1 yr in 3 to such a crop; maybe in high rainfall can double crop, but not in Aus's grain belts anyway.
As i understand it the root nodules that actually fix the N can't/wont release it to soil/other plants a) until the host plant (eg.legume) is harvested, & b) unless the roots are left in the soil, which can create cultivation and disease/pest problems.

Agree with the point about need to return human manure to farmland, just hope the hormonal/pharmaceutical/heavymetal/salt pollutants in same will taper off quickly. I have horrible visions of untested and plausibly toxic sewerage being irrigated onto the vege's of well meaning powerdowners. Would a zero-waste-export policy for households make ppl more careful? ("You poo it, you eat it" doesn't sound very catchy..)

[GoIllini]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Liamj', 'T')rue Pops, there are a host of recognised soil imbalances being treated, with lime being one of the bulkiest. Incidentally, isn't excess N a leading cause of acidification? So theres a faint silver lining, just don't ask me how we're going to ship and spread all these industrial ag. inputs.

On N fixing plants, yes they're great for N fixing (and for stock forage in drylands) but they can't begin to replace synthetic fertilisers without sacrificing say 1 yr in 3 to such a crop; maybe in high rainfall can double crop, but not in Aus's grain belts anyway.
As i understand it the root nodules that actually fix the N can't/wont release it to soil/other plants a) until the host plant (eg.legume) is harvested, & b) unless the roots are left in the soil, which can create cultivation and disease/pest problems.

[Peakoil_Tarzan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GoIllini', 'C')rop rotations worked for thousands of years in Medieval and Rennaisance Europe without too many pest problems.

[GoIllini]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') have seen historical accounts of early American colonial agricultural yields that were fairly impressive. But these only lasted a few years as the native soil fertility was soon depleted. If you look at, for instance, the average per acre corn yield since WW II, you will see that yields have increased almost five-fold. This would not have happened without massive inputs of petrochemicals (fuel, fertilizers, pesticides) and without a simultaneous breeding of varieties that could take advantage of the petrochemical inputs.

[Seadragon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Peakoil_Tarzan', '
')I think the point that donshan is trying to make is that the demise of the petroleum/gas industry is a threat to Americans (and others, as well) at a very basic level. We shouldn't think otherwise.

[Peakoil_Tarzan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GoIllini', '[') Many people have been claiming "Oh no! Erosion's screwed that up", so I've been concerned that erosion before the dust bowl might have lowered agricultural productivity.

The notion that we had even higher productivity AFTER the dustbowl without help from petrochemicals would suggest that our soil was in even better shape than it was in 1900. The environmental science textbooks I've studied from (If anything, these authors have every incentive to be pessimistic) claim that most of the U.S.'s soil erosion happened before the dust bowl.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Peakoil_Tarzan', '
')Unbeknownst to most Americans, the US has, for some time, been a net protein importer and recently, we became a net food importer (I think this refers to total tonnage imported). I agree -- we should be able to raise more than enough for US tables, but the fact is that currently, we apparently are not.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Peakoil_Tarzan', 'C')rop rotations worked because that is all that we had. As for your contention that there weren't "too many pest problems," let me just say that the concept of "famine" is a very old one.

...I think the point that donshan is trying to make is that the demise of the petroleum/gas industry is a threat to Americans (and others, as well) at a very basic level. We shouldn't think otherwise.

[Pops]

Actually I believe the US recently became a net importer from a dollar standpoint.

I would be interested in seeing a link regarding protein imports. I wouldn’t be surprised though – outsourcing food production by multinationals is no different than outsourcing t-shirt production.

[Peakoil_Tarzan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'A')ctually I believe the US recently became a net importer from a dollar standpoint.

[Pops]

Thanks for the link PT.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Peakoil_Tarzan', '
')I guess we're in danger of hijacking donshan's original post