why is there a fertilizer shortage?
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3 key components of fertilizer are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Russia and Ukraine are two of the worlds biggest fertilizer exporting countries. Those facilities are likely offline, or potentially converted for war efforts. But even if they are up and running normally, their usual supply routes are now a war zone.
Making artificial fertilisers takes a lot of energy, about 1-2% of the world energy consumption. So fertiliser prices is directly related to energy prices. With a high energy price the fertiliser price is also high and a lot of fertiliser plants have shut down. In addition to energy the most cost efficient way to produce fertilisers use natural gas, about 3-5% of the extracted natural gas in the world. One of the biggest natural gas extractor in the world is Russia but exports from Russia have been limited for the past 18 months. This have created a shortage of natural gas driving the prices up. Even in the US the natural gas is being exported to Europe rather then sold locally. So again fertiliser plants shut down because they can not buy natural gas at a price which the farmers can accept.
I’m not sure if it’s the same fertiliser shortage you’re talking about but there’s a global issue of running out of phosphorus in the next century or so. We dig up phosphorus for use in fertilisers but that’s a finite resource that we’re consuming and eventually we’re going to run out.
The individual atoms of phosphorus get drawn into the plants we grow and eat, then ultimately get passed out as poop and fed into the sewers where it ends up in the sea. The output is massively diluted before it reaches the sea and then becomes even more dilute, the phosphorus atoms being spread out incredibly thinly through the ocean. The phosphorus isn’t strictly gone, it’s still on the planet but it’s now almost impossible to collect.
So we just dig up more phosphorus from the ground and use that as fertiliser. Eventually we’re going to run out and our farming industry has become dependant on it. There are some options for alternative sources, mostly related to poop processing, sewage treatment plants and animal poop processing etc. But our easiest source of phosphorus has a time limit and it’s going to make farming much more expensive when it runs out.
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