PHOSPHORITES FEED PEOPLE: FINITE FERTLIZER ORES
IMPACT CANADIAN AND GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY
[A similar version of this essay was published in The Monitor (1998),
(The Journal of The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)]

Header: Global food production depends upon availability of phosphate rock, a non-renewable fertilizer ore that is in diminishing global supply. Canadian agriculture depends mightily upon imported phosphorite rock, much of which presently comes from Togo, one of the poorest nations in the world. Reflection upon matters of social justice, alongside the coordination of economic, political, societal, geological and environmental expertise are required to adequately understand Canadian and global food security.

INTRODUCTION

Fertilizers are an essential component of industrial agriculture. Plants extract soil nutrients during their growth; harvest, transport, and consumption of crops transfers soil nutrients into animal - including human - bellies. Most agricultural practices remove nutrients faster than they are replenished by natural processes of soil formation; consequently potassium, nitrogen, phosphorus and micronutrient fertilizers are purchased and applied by most farmers. Nitrogen fertilizer is manufactured from atmospheric nitrogen, potassium fertilizer is derived from geological potash deposits, and phosphorus from rock phosphorite. Thus, ensurability of food production is dependent upon the secure availability of fertilizer products upon which high crop yields depend.

Rock phosphorite is a non-renewable fertilizer ore that is in diminishing global supply and for which there is no substitute. Global sales of phosphorite ore and derived products exceeded $4.5 billion in 1996; phosphorite is big business. Canadian and global food production - the chicken leg or tofu dog on your barbecue - depends absolutely upon the availability of adequate phosphorite reserves.

The present and future assurability of an adequate and available food supply - in industrialized and in developing nations, indeed, for all persons - is an integral component of food security. Since ecological and social justice factors contribute substantially to food security, coordination and integration of economic, political, societal and environmental expertise are required to adequately understand them. Lester Brown (1998) - founder and president of the Worldwatch Institute - concluded that a global crisis in food scarcity and associated rises in food prices and famine will be the first and principal manifestation of expanding global population and acccelerating environmental decline. Canada is a mighty grain exporter, yet we need pay particular attention to these trends, because for a very simple reason: Canadian agriculture depends absolutely upon imported rock phosphate.

This essay highlights the oceanic and geological origins of rock phosphorite, surveys Canadian and global distribution of this essential, non-renewable resource and expresses some little-recognized concerns related to finite phosphorite reserves, geopolitics, and food security. I target a broad readership of social scientists, as an invitation to thoughtful consideration of a problem that is motivating expenditure of corporate billions, but is scarcely recognized or discussed in other circles. A single theme will become abundantly clear to the reader: the "phosphorite problem" warrants broadly inclusive discussion and assessment, since it poses unique challenges and opportunities for government policy makers, corporate decision makers, and members of the society at large.


ORIGIN OF PHOSPHATE ROCK DEPOSITS

Phosphatic minerals comprising most economic phosphorites form in sediments beneath exceptionally fertile regions of the coastal ocean. Seasonal winds interact with forces arising from Earth's rotation to produce divergence of surface water bodies and pulsational upwelling of nutrient-rich deeper waters into the sunlit surface layer. Dissolved nutrients - nitrate and phosphate - fuel prolific algal blooms, grasses of the sea that support oceanic food webs. In this manner, salmon stocks of the NE Pacific and anchovy fisheries off the Peru-Chile margin are testaments to contemporary upwelling processes.

The cycle of life and death in ocean upwelling zones propels sedimentation of organic matter. Critters expire or are eaten, and their shredded carcasses accumulate in sediments as fecal pellets and as gelatinous flocs termed marine snow. Decay of some of this deposited organic matter consumes virtually all of the dissolved oxygen near the seafloor, a natural process that permits formation of finely-layered, organic-rich muds. These muds are a biogeochemical "strange brew", where calcium - derived directly from seawater or from the shells of calcareous plankton - and phosphorus - generally derived from bacterial decay of organic matter and dissolution of fish bones and scales - combine to form pencil-thin laminae and discrete sand to pebble-sized grains of phosphate minerals. Such precipitation of phosphate minerals - a process termed phosphogenesis - is mediated by bacteria that thrive in organic-rich, anoxic muds.

Finely disseminated phosphate minerals in deep sea muds preserve a microfossil-rich record of climate and ocean history, but they are of little value as a natural resource. However, during some geological epochs, regional increases in the energy of deep ocean currents rework some of these deposits and carry fine mud further offshore, leaving behind coarse-grained, phosphate-enriched deposits termed phosphorite. Tectonic uplift or lowered sea levels leave ancient phosphorites on dry land, where mining interests assess their economic potential.


ECONOMICS OF PHOSPHATE ROCK RESOURCES

Rock phosphorite is a non-renewable fertilizer ore; it is essential to industrial agriculture and there is no substitute. Once mined, rock phosphorite is crushed and acidified at an enormous scale. 85% of global sulfur is used to make sulfuric acid; 70% of this industrial acid is used to process phosphate rock into usable fertilizer. Several different acidification processes are employed to produce phosphorus-rich liquids and precipitates that are sold and applied to soils as fertilizer and animal feed supplements.

Canada possesses trivial phosphate rock reserves. Canadian farmers and Canadian food production depends upon imported phosphate. Historically, we have imported virtually all of our phosphate from the US, however Togo has been a significant source since 1987. A September 2, 1997 news release by Agrium announced plans to develop a significant but fairly limited igneous deposit near Kapuskasing (addition in December 2002: this mine is operating and supplies P rock to the adjacent phosphorite beneficiation plant; I do not know the magnitude of the reserves or current production.)

Like all mineral commodities, the economic costs of exploration, production, transportation, and processing are weighed against the market value of saleable product. The US is the world's leading producer of phosphate rock, accounting for 38% of global production over the last 30 years. These riches are extracted from Paleozoic rocks in Wyoming and Idaho (The Phosphoria Complex) and from younger geological deposits in North Carolina and Florida; the latter deposits accounted for 85% of US production in 1996.
The fertilizer sector has experienced a number of major changes in recent months. Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PCS) - a privately owned corporation - established itself as a major player in the phosphate industry, by its 1995 expenditure of $1.6 billion to purchase phosphorite properties and beneficiation plants in the US Gulf Coast. PCS's bold steps captured 39% of US phosphate rock reserves, and included a production and beneficiation plant that is widely regarded as the industry leader in performance and efficiency. PCS is now the fourth largest producer of phosphate rock, behind the US, Morocco and China. However, even these US-based reserves are limited.

Data assembled by the US government show that mines in the US contribute 28% of the global annual production of phosphate rock. However, their reserves - defined as phosphorite that can be mined profitably for $60.per ton - comprise only 11% of the world total. In other words, PCS and US companies like IMC-Agrico and Cargill Fertilizer are extracting relatively small geological deposits of phosphorite at a very high rate ! Back-of-the envelope calculations suggest that US reserves will withstand about 30 years of production at current extraction rates. More sophisticated projections by Herring and Fantel (1993) suggest that the US deposits will be producing at only 50% of 1993 levels by 2015 and remain at that level or lower for another 15 years. Declining reserves will certainly compel a North American transition from net phosphate exporter to major phosphate importer.

In simple terms, the world's breadbasket may soon depend upon imported phosphorite ! And where does this phosphorite lie ? About 60% of the global phosphorite reserves lie in a rich belt extending from the Middle East into North Africa, a geological realm termed the South Tethys (note in December 2002: see Grimm et al., 2000 and references by Pufahl et al. on my reference list for more on the South Tethys Phosphorite Giant). The great majority - 52% of the reserve - lies in Morocco, with substantial economic deposits in the former Spanish Sahara. Guerrilla fighters opposed to Morocccan authority in the Spanish Sahara - and backed by Libya and Algeria - clashed with the Moroccans until a 1991 ceasefire agreement. A proviso of the cease fire was a referendum on the sovereignty of the disputed, phosphate-rich territory. To date an agreement concerning voter eligibility has not been reached and the election has yet to occur (Brazier, 1998).

The Moroccan example brings several points to light: 1) Enormous economic phosphorite reserves exist in Morocco; 2) The demand projections for rock phosphorite and their proximity to markets make these deposits an enormous economic asset; 3) The linkage of non-renewable resources and profit potential of these deposits in this developing region pose the possibility of a one nation cartel and/or future armed struggles over these gigantic reserves.

On the broadest scale, Herring and Fantel (1993) estimate global phosphate reserves, project future demand of phosphate rock, and forecast depletion of the global reserve base - the quantity of phosphorite that can be produced at $140. per ton - within the next 100 years ! Listen carefully: the sum of these issues is NOT an immanent spectre that "we're running out of phosphate rock (fertilizer ore)". At issue is the genuine concern of increasing cost for extracting smaller and smaller reserves, and the dependence of Canadian, US and global food production upon rock phosphorite imported from politically volatile regions.

Think about it. Today, the supply and demand of oil makes the global economy go-round. When the Middle Eastern petroleum cartel (OPEC) flexed its muscles in the late 1970's, economies stuttered and the world lined up for gas. The emerging scenario is neither alarmist nor nationalistic, but highlights authentic concerns of planetary scale. Diminishing phosphate resources, exponential growth of the human population, and even steeper demand for rock phosphate in many developing nations as a more western-style, high protein diet is adopted sharpens the focus. Herring and Stowaser (1991) considered some of these factors, and concluded that by 2020, rock phosphorite may be the keystone resource of the world economy.

For example, the 1996 annual report of a major fertilizer manufacturer (IMC Global, Inc.), accounts the human population of Asia as 3.3 billion, with average daily consumption of animal protein at 15 grams per person. Their projections suggest that Asia's population will swell to 4.5 billion by 2030, alongside a quadrupling of per capita meat intake to 60 grams per person per day. A rising standard of living in developing nations is manifested as an increase in quality of diet, which creates further demand on diminishing phosphate resources.

Recall that Canada is a phosphate importer and that the US will likely transition from being the number one phosphate exporter to a phosphate importer in the next 30 years. The undetermined variables concern increased efficiency in utilization of known phosphate reserves, the possibility of large undiscovered reserves in North America and elsewhere, and/or the development of improved beneficiation techniques to profitably extract phosphate fertilizer products from leaner ores. Certainly, the geologic, economic, and demographic factors governing the distribution and continuing availability of phosphorite deserve close inspection by a broad spectrum of researchers, policy makers and corporate decision makers. In addition, developing nations must acquire and utilize adequate, public domain knowledge of their own deposits, to minimize the opportunity for exploitive or environmentally-disruptive mineral extraction and processing. Finally, as global citizens and as trustees of a great agricultural breadbasket, Canadians and Americans ought to be well-informed about these challenges, one I term "the phosphate problem".


SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

To summarize, there exists a vital and undisputed link between phosphate rock and world food production. The availability and distribution of this finite fertilizer ore has profound significance for the security and affordability of regional and global food production. I have reviewed the origin of rock phosphorite deposits and have surveyed several aspects of this complex demographic issue: a) Canadian agriculture depends entirely upon imported phosphate; b) the US is the top producer of rock phosphorite, but diminishing reserves may find the US importing large percentages of rock phosphorite early in the next century; c) global demand for rock phosphorite will swell in coming decades; d) the large bulk of the global reserve base lies in politically volatile regions of North Africa (Morocco /Spanish Sahara, Algeria and Tunisia ) and the Middle East (Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia).

Numerous questions emerge. What considerations must be made for the poor of Togo, whose mines supply most the phosphate rock that fills our bellies and agribusiness bank accounts? Will we and our children witness the emergence of a "new world order", where the volume and affordability of regional and global food production is highly vulnerable to manipulation by selfish interests? Are transnational corporations, governments, NGO's and the remaining public sector adequately informed about the geology, economics and geopolitics of phosphorite resources? What outcomes can be anticipated and planned for? As individuals, as a nation, and as participants in a planetary community, where must we prudently alter our course? One conclusion is clear: the intricate and society-relevant issue of declining phosphorite resources warrants further interdisciplinary research, to complement broad, inclusive, and proactive discussion in the public domain.

Dr. Kurt Grimm (kgrimm@eos.ubc.ca)
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences - University of British Columbia

References Cited

Brown, L.R. 1998, Who Will Feed China ? & Facing Food Scarcity. in Brown, L.R. and Ayres, E., 1998 (eds). The World Watch Reader on Global Environmental Issues. W.W. Norton & Co., New York, p. 196-238.

Herring J.R. and Fantel, R.J., 1993. Phosphate rock demand into the next century: Impact on world food supply. Nonrenewable Resources (2)3: 226-246.

US Geological Survey (1992-1996). Minerals Information Service: http://minerals.er.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/phosphate_rock/