While there is relief at last night’s ceasefire in the US-Israel war with Iran, today’s commentators continue to warn of ongoing uncertainty for fuel supplies and prices; but in the long run, will it be shortages of fertiliser and the knock-on effect on our food security that affect Britain the most in the economic fall-out of the war? Cutting fertiliser use has never made more sense.

Keys facts: According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, about a third of the global seaborne trade in fertilisers pass through the Strait of Hormuz(1). Essential components of fertiliser like urea and ammonia are made with energy-intensive production processes including gas. This means that, for efficiency, production tends to be clustered near low-cost gas producers, particularly around the Persian Gulf in countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain the UAE and Iran. This density meant that a single Iranian strike on a Qatari facility has been reported as disrupting 1/7th of global urea production. Volatility in supply is likely to continue(2).

Fertiliser costs are surging for the second time in just 5 years after similar trade disruptions following the invasion of Ukraine caused fertiliser prices to spike to $815 per tonne in April 2022. This is more than four times the price of just over $200 per tonne in 2020(3). Arguably the situation is worse this time round as there is less spare production capacity elsewhere to fill the gap.

UK farmers – as well as those elsewhere – are rightly highlighting the risks of higher farm input costs, especially of red diesel and fertiliser, because of the Iran conflict. They are also simultaneously facing increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather events due to accelerating climate change. The deluges that put productive fields underwater in 2023/24 led to millions of pounds of government intervention to protect farmers with flooded fields.

  • sparkyshocks@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    16 days ago

    particularly in the growing season

    And if you’re getting 10% of your calories from your garden for 10% of the year, that’s 1%.

    Especially as I’m talking about a community patchwork, where people share their overabundance of squash for someone else’s potatoes.

    Yes, so that’s why I’m saying per person, because each person needs to eat. Yes, people should work together, too, but if you’re talking about a few households adding up to 10 people, then you’re talking about 10 times the food needs (and wants). A community of 100 people needs 100 times as much.

    The amount produced by gardening is never going to be more than a rounding error, while imposing significant efforts on the people who participate. A serious conversation about fertilizer and energy use is going to address the sheer amount of feed and energy that goes into dairy and beef.

    Gardening is a fun hobby and an enriching activity, but it’s not going to move the needle in aggregate ecological statistics like national fertilizer consumption or demand for commercially farmed product.

    So keep growing the things that make economic sense with the resources you have. For me, it’s herbs, alliums, and spicy capsicums, where I go for things high in flavor so that the tiny amount I produce can still make an impact on the dishes I make, for at least a few weeks out of the year. But I’m not laboring under any kind of misconception that I’m appreciably changing my demand for farmland, fertilizer, agricultural inputs like fertilizer or pesticide, water, or energy. And there’s nothing wrong with gardening for flowers or other plants that don’t produce food, either.

    For these large scale problems, we need hard numbers, not just feelings of one’s perceived personal sacrifices. Follow the math.