There was once a food economy and an energy economy, but the boom in biofuels is now merging the two. . .

Global fertilizer prices rose more than 200% in 2007 as farmers applied more fertilizer to maximize production of corn -- now used for ethanol -- at record prices; hardest hit are African farmers who need fertilizer to replenish nutrient-depleted soils.

The unprecedented rise in fertilizer prices - more than 200% in the past year - is creating a fertilizer crisis for resource-poor farmers in developing countries. . . Particularly hard-hit are farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Farmers there need fertilizers desperately, to replenish their nutrient-depleted soils. But fertilizer use in Africa is the world's lowest - about 8 kg per hectare. The lack of fertilizers in Africa accentuates hunger and poverty.

The biofuels debacle accentuated and accelerated a problem that was always there and growing ever more focused. There never were two economies - food and energy - they were always one. Even in pre-industrial times this was so: animal dung was used both as an energy source - burned for heating and cooking - and fertilizer for fields. The invention of gunpowder - a mix of nitrates, charcoal and sulfur - amplified the conflict since a key source of nitrates was from rotted dung piles. (see Fossil Fertilizer)

Adding military imperatives to the conflict shaped it, affecting geopolitics from the 13th through the 20th centuries. Ammonia synthesis from fossil fuels - at first a byproduct of metal smelting activites in the production of coke from coal, then a primary product using fossil methane as feedstock as well as the heat source - continued the conflict during the industrial and military boom of the 20th century.

Nitrogen gets most of the attention but phosphorous and potassium fertilizers are just as important and in just as much conflict. During much of the 18th and 19th centuries the forests of the new world were burned to make potash - from which the word potassium is derived. It was used in Europe, especially Britain, to make soap, glass, and gunpowder as well as fertilizers. One of the first American patents, in 1790, was for an improved method for making potash that increased both the quantity and quality of the product. (see Secret Ingredients) During the same time period England was robbing the graves of the world to get bones to get the phosphorous they contained. (see Rock Fertilizer)

Prices of phosphate fertilizers rose more steeply than the price of nitrogen-based urea because production sources are more limited. . . Most of the world's phosphate fertilizers are produced in the United States, Morocco, and along the Baltic Sea. Canada produces 70% of the world's muriate of potash. But plants to manufacture urea, for which natural gas is the main raw material resource, are dispersed worldwide. The world is currently short of urea, but global production may increase because at least six large new urea plants are projected to open in 2008: two in Iran and one each in Egypt, Nigeria, Oman, and Russia.

Nitrogen is not stored in soils, use it or lose it, but other nutrients, though present, may be unavailable to plants, locked up so to speak in compounds that plants can't access. Attention to soil chemistry, especially its PH, can release nutrients (Lime, sulfur, biochar). Attention to soil structure can reduce nutrient loss, and so reduce the amounts that must be provided. (Think organic matter, biochar.) Attention to relative amounts of various nutrients, keeping them in balance, can reduce loss of relative excesses. Attention to secondary nutrient minerals, such as manganese which acts something like a catalyst enhancing chemical processes in soil, can reduce total needs. As a bonus ot sorts, food and fodder produced on soils with balanced fertility are more nutritious. Better food as well as more food.

Calls for increased availability of fertilizers for hungry developing nations, often recommending various forms of subsidy, are not the whole answer and not the best answer. Dumping more fertilizer on soils in a willy-nilly fashion without attention to a complete and balanced agronomic system will not give satisfactory results and will increase problems over time. Doing the wrong things more vigorously, or even the right things to excess, doesn't help.

There is a science to all of this, one that is not widely understood. The confusion is increased by lack of a shared knowledge base and vocabulary. Growers often have understandings and insights that are expressed in terms that institutional scientists don't understand, and the reverse. In my view it is the scientists who are best placed to act as translators and communicators. They could help a lot by acquiring a broad understanding of the practice as well as the science and formulating agronomic systems that are particular to places and expressed in terms that can be understood by locals.

In a sense the run up in food, fertilizer and energy prices presents an opportunity. Growing more food using fewer inputs is a thing worth doing now more than ever. It was always smart, but may now be more clearly a life and death as well as an economic issue.