PEAK WHAT?

Over recent years there has been much talk of peak this and peak that, one thing that may have slipped by is the possibility that we may be less than 30 years away from reaching peak Phosphorus. So what people might say, what's that to do with me... a lot is the answer.

As the population of our planet comes close to the 8 billion mark around 2025 (9 billion by 2050) the struggle to feed everyone is going to become more intense. Food itself is only one aspect of what is going to become (if it is not already) an increasingly complicated problem.

So far, largely out of sight and out of mind, a quiet struggle is going on to secure control of the worlds phosphorous reserves. While some countries such as India are entirely dependent upon imported phosphorous supplies all of us in the first world and elsewhere have become very dependent on relatively cheap fertilizers of which phosphorus is a vital component.

At the moment it takes around one tonne of phosphate to produce around 130 tonnes of grain. Not to mention that around 170 million tonnes of phosphate are mined every year (in 2011 (so far)) and the fact that there has been a 30 percent increase in the mining of phosphate. Geologically it is estimated that there are around 65 billion tonnes of phosphate rocks on the planet, but only around 16 billion tonnes of which can be mined economically.

Now obviously the word 'economically' is a variable and market price, demand, desperation and hunger will all have impact on the mining process so the margins will change. Interestingly enough 80% of the planets reserves can be found in Morocco and much oppressed Western Sahara.

In 2009, there was a 14.2% increase in the amount of phosphate fertiliser produced in the Peoples Republic of China - 15.8 million tonnes. The PRC itself may have phosphate reserves of around 18 billion tonnes. The PRC Government has added phosphorus to a list of around 20 minerals that China will be unable to source from inside China in anticipation of economic demand in the next 20 years.

One major problem that we all face from increased use of phosphate based or phosphate rich fertilizers is run-off. It has been estimated that around 37 million tonnes of phosphorus is leaked into the environment every year, washed into rivers, lakes and the oceans helping to fuel toxic algae and bacteria.

Food security is going to become a key issue in the first fifty years of this century along with energy security. Gradually weaning ourselves of phosphate and chemically based fertilizers might be the wise course. Not to mention significantly investing in plant breeding stations to tailor crops on a non genetic level to make best use of our soils, but, of course that would get in the way of profits.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

I am no fan of globalisation, never have been, it's done (and does) damage to a whole number of our communities as unscrupulous employers chase ever greater profits by searching for cheap labour. What had not crossed my mind was that globalisation does not just effect commercial business and manufacturing industry, it affects agriculture as well. The global food production system is also at risk from globalisation (and also from an end to cheap oil). Cheap oil, which is admittedly a relative concept at the moment, makes industrial agriculture and bulk international food distribution both possible and affordable and has fueled ironically a rapid loss of genetic diversity in food plants and domesticated farm animals.

Over the last 8,000 or so years humans have been very good at breeding agricultural livestock with particularly desired traits more meat, better milk yields, sheep with hooves that are more resistant to salt water, etc.The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has noted that the world loses one domestic agricultural breed a month and of the 7,600 breeds on the UN database of farm animal genetic resources some 20% are at risk of extinction.

The UNFAO has stated that the globalisation of the worlds livestock markets is the biggest single factor in driving the loss of diverse domesticated livestock. Western focused agriculture has long prised the production higher yields of meat, milk, eggs, etc. Outside of the areas - other traits have traditionally been more important in different parts of the world. Tough local breeds of cattle have been bred over centuries to cope with dry spells, to subsist of particular eco-systems, disease and erratic local weather conditions and periodic droughts.

Now the global trend is for Holstein-Freiesan cows which are literally becoming a global super breed. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a word to say against Holstein-Friesan cattle agriculturally (as in many things) one size does not fit all, allowing the market to impose European style intensive agriculture and agricultural styles on areas like the Sahel (in Africa) and in Brazil or other parts of the globe does not suit particular soil types or agricultural; practices.

In the colonial period, consummate arrogance which dismissed local agricultural custom and practice as primitive and which led to the imposition of European farming methods in the eco-sensitive Sahel region of Africa led to disaster. Closer to home, the loss of domesticated plant and animal diversity within Europe as EU funded agriculture begins to impose unnecessary and or 'free market' driven changes on traditional agricultural practices in Poland and parts of Eastern Europe should be resisted and avoided at all costs.

The loss of diversity will limit our chances of breeding (by traditional methods) crops that are more tolerant to drought, heat, excessive rain and less dependent upon oil based fertilizers which pollute our water resources. We should know better, we have to make the right choices now, because unravelling the mess that industrial scale agriculture could (and probably will) create cost us dear in the future.