Global food security stands to get a boost soon as International Fertiliser Development Corporation (IFDC) is set to launch the Virtual Fertiliser Research Centre (VFRC), a global research initiative to help create the next generation of fertilisers and production technologies.
As the initial financial support will be provided by the US Agency for International Development, the new and improved fertilisers are critical elements in the effort to help feed the world’s growing population, provide sustainable global food security, and protect the environment.
Notore Chemical Industries Limited in Onne, Rivers State, a frontline fertiliser manufacturer in Nigeria, also stands to leverage on the new technologies. It would be recalled that the Onne plant churned out urea fertiliser on July 2, 2009, and is currently operating full blast with products already in the market. Notore has the capacity to produce 500,000 metric of Urea within its first year of production and a gigantic increase to 750,000 metric tons by 2011, after a complete revamp.
Over $400 million was invested in the project, which consist of both debt and equity. Equity partners include Emerging Capital Partners (ECP), an international private equity firm, and Orascom Construction Industries (Orascom), leading Egyptian company with interests in construction, fertiliser and more.
The United Nations Population Division estimates that the global population is more than 6.8 billion and could reach 9.2 billion by 2050. More than 95 percent of the population growth is occurring in Africa and Asia, which already account for three-fourths of the global population.
There is a finite limit of arable land, and even though land remains that could be converted to agricultural production (particularly in Africa), the environmental cost of doing so is also increasing. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the number of hungry people recently passed the one-billion mark, and more than one-seventh of the world’s population. The number was growing before the global economic crisis, which has made the situation even worse.
The FAO estimates that Asia and the Pacific region have the largest number of hungry people who are about 642 million, followed by sub-Saharan Africa with 265 million. In 2008, the world struggled with food, fertiliser and fuel price crises that included dramatic price swings and shortages according to Amit H. Roy, IFDC president and chief executive officer.
The crises have temporarily abated largely due to the global recession. However, since the underlying causes remain, it is likely that these problems will re-emerge with economic recovery. Because of these crises, new and innovative research is needed to help feed the world. The time has come for developing practices and technologies to improve the use of land and labour resources, reduce emissions into the air and water and conserve natural resources.
With the population, economic and environmental issues facing it, the world cannot afford the current level of inefficiency in fertiliser production and use. It is estimated that 50 percent of the food consumed worldwide results directly from the use of (or benefits of) nitrogen fertiliser. Yet, only about one-third of the nitrogen fertiliser applied to crops in developing countries is utilised due to inefficiency in application methods and the inherent properties of current fertiliser products.
The financial cost and waste burden farmers who pay for three times as much nutrient as their crops absorb. But that does not account for the total financial cost or waste. The fertiliser does not disappear but often becomes an environmental pollutant, either in the form of potent greenhouse gas or runoff that fouls streams and lakes. The production of one ton of urea, the predominant nitrogen fertiliser product, requires the energy equivalent of four barrels of oil. Inefficiencies in production and use result in less than 20 percent of the phosphate mined to produce phosphorus fertiliser ever becoming a part of the food chain.
Yet, over the past 25 years, no efficient fertiliser product has been developed, and particularly no product affordable for use on food crops by farmers in less developed countries.
With a billion hungry people, it is unacceptable to condone such crop nutrient waste. With global climate change and declining biodiversity, it is also unacceptable to continue the unnecessary pollution of our environment. The world needs a new generation of fertiliser products and processes that make more efficient use of available resources. In a January 2008 letter to Roy, the late Norman Borlaug, and 1970 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and father of the Green Revolution, said: “The work of the green revolution is not yet finished, and I believe it will take a new round of technological advancement, political commitment, commercial development and a lot of hard work to complete the job.”
Borlaug’s letter to Roy continued, “We need to develop new products that will deliver just the nutrients that the growing plants require and to diminish environmental externalities. We need to invest in this sort of advanced fertilizer research and we need to coordinate it with advanced plant genetic research so that we can achieve synergy between more efficient use of available nutrients by plants and more efficient delivery of nutrients by fertiliser products.
And we need to develop systems that can make these products cheaper and more accessible to farmers. We need to cut the cost of food production so that developing country farmers can produce affordable food to feed their growing urban populations.”
Jimmy Cheek, chancellor of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, (USA), has agreed to chair the advisory board of the VFRC.
“The VFRC can develop a new suite of crop nutrients that will revolutionise agriculture in the developing world,” Cheek noted.
“I am proud to be associated with the effort and recognise its urgency and importance.”