THE NITROGEN FERTILIZER TREADMILLS Saul Levin Henna Mahmood - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

THE NITROGEN FERTILIZER TREADMILLS

Saul Levin Henna Mahmood

Source: International Fertilizer Industry Association

Fertilizer consumption since 1980

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Source: International Fertilizer Industry Association

Nitrogen Phosphorus Potassium

Fertilizer consumption since 1980

67% 28% 58% 60% 64% 66%

Western/ Central Europe India China Russia United States Brazil

Nitrogen consumption as a percentage of total fertilizer consumption

Sources: International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) (2014)

“The fertilizer nutrient balance in the Brazilian agriculture is unsatisfacto- ry...soils are being progressively de- pleted of nutrients. This represents a threat to long-term agricultural sustainability.”

Brazil uses over

80%

compound fertilizers

Sources: UN FAO

Source: IFA 2011

Global nitrogen use by crop

1830 - 1879

Guano Imperialism

Second Industrial Revolution First Food Regime

Farming to agriculture Industrialization Centrality of colonialism

Rising fjnancialization and monopolies

1910

Haber- Bosh Invention

1939

World War II

1914

World War I

1960

Green Revolution

1970s

First Global Oil Crisis

1974

Food Crisis

1980

Structural Adjustment Period

1990s

Economic liberalization and WTO Agreement on Agriculture

1909

Launch of IMC Global (later known as Mosaic)

2000

Commodity Futures Modernization Act

2008

Food Crisis

2014

Launch of Euro- Chem

1946-1947

Launch of CF Industries and Nutrien

2004

Launch of YARA Call for an African Green Rev-

• lution

Transition

Surplus fertilizer from war

Second Food Regime

State developmentalism Capital-intensive industrialization Overproduction Cold War

Third Food Regime

End of strategic role of food aid Trade liberalization Increased power of agribusiness Austerity

15%

24% 48%

Nitrogen Phosphorus Potassium

Sources: Yara Industry Handbook 2013

Percentage of the global market controlled by the top three producers

Synthetic N fertilizer has a serious metabolic rift, and the way in which this rift has been handled (namely through state support and consolidated agribusiness power) has resulted in a growth treadmill of self-reinforcing need and investment beset with farmer dispossessions, techno-spatial fjxes and crisis tendencies. Urbanization is extended and concentrated, but most importantly unstable and on a destructive path.

Synthetic fertilizer Synthetic fertilizer

• utputs

State subsidy Agri- business

Labor dispossession Metabolic Rift

Spatial and Technological Fixes

TREADMILL 1: LABOR DISPOSSESSION

Fertilizer is reinforced by the dispossession of farmers through in- duced migration, “price-cost squeeze” and agribusiness control over agro-food production

The farmer has been changed from a primary producer into an immediate converter of manufactured goods. Farming, carried

• ut by millions of petty producers, is now completely dominated

by the total system of agricultural production under the control

• f a few oligopolies, who sell farmers their inputs, and buy their
• utputs, and control (directly or indirectly) their conditions of
• production. In 1910, farmers gathered their own seeds from last

year’s crop, raised the mules and horses that provided traction power, fed them on hay and grains produced on the farm, and fertilized the fjelds with the manure they produced. In 1986, farmers purchase their seed from Pioneer Hybrid Seed Co., their “mules” from John Deere, the “oats” for their “mules” from Exxon, their “manure” from American Cyanamid. R.C. Lewontin and J.P. Berlan, Technology, Research, and the Penetration of Capital: The Case of U.S. Agriculture. 1986.

Factory Labor Land State Fertilizer Pesticide Chemicals Credit and subsidy Transportation Machinery Crop Land Owner

TREADMILL 2: SPATIAL & TECHNOLOGICAL FIX

Efgorts to resolve fertilizer (and capitalism’s) inner crisis tendancies through technological fjxes + geographical expansion and restructuring

TREADMILL 3: ECOLOGICAL DEGRADATION

“By overcoming the antithesis between town and country...the materials removed from the soil would be able to fmow back in full” -Karl Kautsky

FAO assumes

60%

use effjciency for synthetic nitrogen

Source: The Agrarian Question (1899)

Natural Gas “Unlike many of the industries capitalizing on the low price of natural gas, ammonia producers don’t use it primarily as a fuel source. They use it as an ingredient—a source of abundant, accessible hydrogen”

Source: Scientifjc American

Natural Gas

Source: Environmental Defense Fund

2018 study reveals CH4 emissions

5x

higher than reported for natural gas

Fertilizer Production (Fixation)

Sources: Drawdown and Scientifjc American

Of total global energy use

1.2%

is used for ammonia production

Fertilizer Production (Fixation)

Sources: Drawdown and Scientifjc American

Ammonia production accounts for

3-5%

• f global carbon

emissions

Nitrogen Fertilizer Application

Source: Drawdown

• Acidity
• Carbon losses
• Compaction
• Erosion

Nitrogen Fertilizer Application

Source: Drawdown

Nitrous Oxide has

298x

the warming potential

• f CO2

Runofg

Source: Drawdown

500

algal blooms and

• xygen-depleted
• ceanic dead zones

worldwide

Runofg

Sources: Drawdown and USGS

Sources of nitrogen delivered to the Gulf of Mexico

Thank you