Why we need fertilizers

Global Food Production Must Increase Significantly to Ensure Food Security.
The FAO predicts that the world`s population will reach 9.1 billion people by 2050. Food production will have to increase by some 70% above today`s levels to keep pace with demand. This increase in food production could be achieved by developing more land for agriculture. However, the negative impact on climate change and global bio-diversity of converting natural forests or other wild habitats is well documented. Changes in land use account for some 12% of all the greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming.

Increased Agricultural Efficiency
A more practical option is to make better use of the land currently devoted to agriculture, although this also faces some challenges. The world`s agricultural area is actually shrinking due to increasing urbanisation, soil erosion and nutrient exhaustion and an alarming number of regions are now affected by water scarcity.

Furthermore, since the impressive growth in crop production during the "green revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s, growth in agricultural productivity has now started to decline in many regions. Recent climate change studies predict that this decline will accelerate. Global food security rests on reversing this trend. This requires better agricultural efficiency, more targeted crop fertilization and the adoption of modern crop science.

European Self-Sufficiency
Europe is fortunate in that it has a climate and enough farmland to be potentially self-sufficient in food production.

Its food imports, however, have increased by some 40% over the last 10 years. An agricultural area, outside of

Europe, the size of Germany is now devoted to supplying these. Given increasing global food needs, this land could be better used to support demand elsewhere.

Europe`s agricultural policy has a decisive role in ensuring that it maintains a strong and diverse agricultural sector. It must encourage European farmers to optimize their production and, at the same time, reduce the environmental impact of their operations. This "sustainable intensification" of European agriculture requires widespread adoption of the best agricultural practice and the latest cultivation and soil management techniques.

Ensuring Economic Viability
To enable the necessary measures to be adopted by Europe`s farming communities, European agriculture must be economically viable. If Europe`s farmers are not profitable in the face of ever increasing input costs, they will be unwilling to invest in modernizing their operations. Fertilizers are an integral part of the global food production chain. Their contribution has enabled European agricultural productivity to become the highest in the world. Every euro invested in a fertilizer in Europe provides, on average, a five-fold return, assuring European farmers` financial

How Fertilizers are made
Fertilizer manufacture transforms naturally occurring raw materials into practical products to support plant life.
Each year, the European fertilizer industry transforms millions of tons of air, natural gas and mined ores into products based on the three essential plant nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

For nitrogen-based fertilizers, the largest product group, the process starts by mixing nitrogen from the air with hydrogen from natural gas at high temperature and pressure to create ammonia. Approximately 60% of the natural gas is used as raw material, with the remainder employed to power the synthesis process.

The ammonia is used to make nitric acid, with which it is then mixed to produce nitrate fertilizers such as ammonium nitrate (AN). Ammonia may also be mixed with liquid carbon dioxide to create urea. Both these products can be further mixed together with water to form UAN (urea ammonium nitrate) solution.

Phosphorus and potassium-based fertilizers are both produced from mined ores. Phosphate rock is primarily treated with sulphuric acid to produce phosphoric acid, which is either concentrated or mixed with ammonia to make a range of phosphate (P2O5) fertilizers.

Highlighting the Role of Fertilizers, Crop Nutrition and Soil Health in Global Agriculture Video