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Fertilizer is finite anyways
People think it's still throwing poop on fields, and I legit grew up doing that.
But the vast amount is nonrenewable resources (or needs them in the process) mined in the Middle East or China.
Eventually we're gonna run out of them, even tho it won't be in our lifetimes.
This is just a sneak peak of what's coming.
Also there's an issue with soil microbes and soil exhaustion. It's been a minute since I heard about it, but I had a friend at a government lab who was testing soil in various areas, and found a shockingly low number of crop cycles before the soil is depleted into a dead substance. So that'll be neat because we sure won't reckon with it in advance.
Is that what caused the dust bowl?
I always get sad when I see a new subdivision and they plow all the topsoil into a huge mound and do nothing with it.
That takes thousands of years to generate a few inches! It’s as precious as gold.
They’re not doing “nothing” with it. They typically sell it to a topsoil dealer so you can buy it back at a much higher price!
The movie Interstellar depicted dust storms caused by something called blight. I like to think it was due to the soils being so depleted of nutrients that crops would no longer grow causing the soil to essentially suffocate the planet.
The "dead substance" for soil doesn't exist on the planet. There is always something going on.
First off there is no "normal" level of soil microbial activity. Every native soil varies dramatically in species composition and activity. The highest species activity is usually undisturbed native soil. This is due the varied plant species producing a vast complex of chemicals that effect the microbiome & lots of plant material being decomposed (mostly carbohydrates).
All types agriculture causes massive environmental damage without exceptions. Organic agriculture is overall the most damaging to the environment per Kg produced. Next is conventional farming non-irrigated. Then is irrigated production in arid environments. The least damaging is protected culture (greenhouses, screenhouses etc) because of the massive increase in production/acre.
In agriculture the soil microbial activity and species varies dramatically with different crops and soil types. The amount of microbial activity is mostly linked to available carbohydrates and fertility. Soil microbial activity is only weakly correlated to agricultural productivity. High microbial activity can compete with plants for nutrients. Low microbial activity is usually linked to nutrients being unavailable.
4 most important parts of artificial fertiliser are nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur.
Nitrogen is Infinite. It's made from the air which is 78% nitrogen. Energy is needed to fix it. Usually its natural gas but it doesn't have to be. Electricity can also be used. There are real world plants who use hydro or wild energy to make it, even if they are few today.
Phosphorus is plentiful on Earth, both in soil, rock and sea water. However in most natural sources the concentration is too low to actually refine today. Phosphate rock which is the main source today is limited. 70% of the current Reserves are in one single country, Morocco. All world reserves combined should last for a our 300 years. After that we will either have to extract phosphorus from less phosphorus dense sources or we have to recycle it better from human excrete. Nevertheless we have plenty of time to come up with that technology. Main problem right now is not it running out but the risk of how concentrated it is. What if Morocco doesn't want to share?
Potassium is extremely plentiful around the world. It's 2,6% of the Earth's mass and even the potassium rich minerals we currently use are expected to last hundreds if not thousands of years. Mined all over the world but mostly in Canada, china and Russia and Belarus. Not really a problem. Also plentiful in seawater.
Sulfur has many different sources and in most it's a byproduct. Main source is as a biproduct of refining fossil fuels but it's also created as a byproduct of mining for other minerals. The amount needed for agriculture is also comparably small. There is so much sulfur out there it's even mixed into concrete just to get rid of it. I don't see sulfur as a main concern.
So to summarize I'm really not concerned about any of them except for phosphorus and for that one it's mostly the question of how willing Morocco is to share it. Long term when sulfate rock runs out 300 years I'm quite secure we have found out how to commercially extract it from a less dense mineral. Either that or we have finally started seriously recycling it from human excrete. Phosphorus is very easily recycled. The technology is already here. More sewage plants would just have to do it. And if we are starting to slowly reach peak phosphorus the pure financial incentives will make sewage plants start recovering it. Now it doesn't happen because the mineral phosphorus is just too cheap and convenient.
I live in Tillamook, land of cheese. We still use poop here, very few do otherwise though :(
FYI, Tillamook region is steadily a declining part of Tillamook Cheese. The main plant is a mega-dairy and farm outside of Boardman, OR. They have 93,000 acres of land (threemile canyon farms a subsidiary of RD Offut).
The reason: due to the arid conditions, hot temperatures, and access to irrigation water from the Columbia River, the region produces 2.5-3x per acre more feed than the cool, very wet, Tillamook area. In gross production of crops per acre, they are one of the highest production regions/acre on the planet. They use varieties developed for the southern Mid-west (113-120 day corn). However their average yeilds are 20% higher than the southern Mid-west.
Dairy farming in Tillamook is environmentally terrible. The large amounts of rain causes constant runoff and leaching of nutrients. Most of the nutrients from the manure they spread washes away with the winter rain. Because of the lack of heat units, they use varieties that are adapted to the northern Canadian corn belt (67-72 day corn).
I mean nitrogen fertilizer is effectively infinite as long as you have energy. Cheap nitrogen fertilizer is not.
A good source is potash! Canada produces a lot of it.
Potash is one part.
It doesn't do everything, but it is one of the essential parts.
But...
You need LNG (liquid natural gas) which is a fossil fuel to produce it.