Food system resilience to phosphorus shortages on a telecoupled planet

Barbieri, Pietro; MacDonald, Graham K.; Raymond, Antoine Bernard de; Nesme, Thomas

doi:10.1038/s41893-021-00816-1

Cited by 52 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…More generally, we found that, at the global scale, 53% of the P embedded in traded products was of anthropic origin; a value amounting to 1.5 Mt P.yr -1 or 8% of the global use of mineral P fertilizers (see Methods). Those results illustrate that food and feed trade displaces large amounts of anthropogenic P that need to be accounted for when assessing the reliance of our global food system to phosphate rock resources (Barbieri et al, 2022;Nanda et al, 2019).…”

Section: Unexpectedly the Trade Of Feed And Food Products Had Almost ...mentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Our results indeed demonstrate that our agricultural systems have been built on the massive use of mineral P fertilizers. Complemented by proxies on current P fertilizer use as well as on soil P stocks (Barbieri et al, 2022), our result show that world regions are facing differentiated risks of P deficits. For instance, Western Europe has high soil P stocks (Jones et al, 2020;Ringeval et al, 2017) but its high anthropogenic P signature shows its strong reliance on mineral P fertilizers, suggesting some longterm vulnerability (Le Noë et al, 2020).…”

Section: Implications For Sustainable Phosphate Rock Managementmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Although it will take centuries for phosphate rock reserves to be depleted, short-term challenges are likely to arise in the next years to decades (Scholz and Wellmer, 2018). The prices of mineral P fertilizers are likely to increase in most world regions and potential geopolitical conflicts might break out, thus putting at risk the resilience of our global food systems (Barbieri et al, 2022;Cordell et al, 2009;Van Vuuren et al, 2010).…”

Section: Main Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Half of global agricultural soil phosphorus fertility derived from anthropogenic sources

et al. 2023

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The global phosphorus (P) cycle has been dramatically altered by human activities through the use of mineral P fertilizers, often referred to anthropogenic P. The application of mineral P fertilizers on agricultural soils has driven the planet beyond its safe operating space but the extent to which the global P cycle relies on anthropogenic P has never been quantified. To fill this gap, we developed a model that simulates, at the country scale, the evolution of agricultural soil available P by distinguishing anthropogenic vs. natural P pools, and by accounting for farming practices, croplivestock recycling loop, and agricultural trade, over the 1950-2017 period. At the global scale we found that the anthropogenic signature of soil available P was 45% ± 8% in 2017. The national anthropogenic signatures varied according to the cumulative mineral P fertilizer use as well as to the soil P availability in 1950. Despite having different historical trajectories, Western Europe, North America and Asia displayed similar reliance on anthropogenic P, close to 60% in 2017. Conversely, African soil anthropogenic signature remained around 30%. Trade did not modify the simulated signatures. Overall, our results unravel the strong reliance of our soil fertility and food production systems on anthropogenic P resources.

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Section: Unexpectedly the Trade Of Feed And Food Products Had Almost ...mentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Implications For Sustainable Phosphate Rock Managementmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Main Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Half of global agricultural soil phosphorus fertility derived from anthropogenic sources

et al. 2023

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“…This study demonstrates the importance of agricultural inputs in food system resilience both nationally and globally. While many previous food system resilience studies have focused on phosphorus due to its nite reserves (e.g., Barbieri et al, 2021;Nanda et al, 2019;O'Hara et al, 2015), our analysis is one of the rst to examine the combined effects of shocks in multiple agricultural inputs. We show that for some areas, other inputs than phosphorus and their shortages may be just as important as regards yield and production.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our somewhat comparable shock scenarios, a 25% Prate shock and a 25% fertiliser shock, maize production in India decreased by 3% and by 12%, respectively. Another study on phosphorus investigated global phosphorus resilience by examining different countries' soil phosphorus reserves, phosphate rock reserves and phosphorus exports (Barbieri et al 2021). They nd that countries with an economy highly dependent on phosphorus rich exports, but low phosphorus soil or rock reserves -such as Argentina and Indonesia -are most vulnerable to global shocks in phosphorus.…”

Section: Comparison To Existing Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural input shocks decrease crop yields globally

Ahvo

Heino

Sandström

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Today’s food system is more global than ever. In addition to food, also the key inputs to food production such as fertilisers, machinery and pesticides are traded among countries. Shocks and disturbances in the trade flows of agricultural inputs, caused by e.g., conflict, can potentially be devastating to the food production and yields even for otherwise self-sufficient countries. However, the impact of these agricultural input shocks on crop yields has not yet been assessed globally. In this study, we modelled the effects of agricultural input shocks using global spatial data on crop yields, fertilisers, machinery and pesticides using a random forest machine learning algorithm. We show that shocks in fertilisers cause the most drastic yield losses. Areas with the highest crop yields suffer the most from all agricultural input shocks, while low-yielding areas are seldom affected. Yield losses in these high-yielding ‘breadbasket’ areas of the world would be detrimental to global food security. For example, global maize production could decrease up to 50%, and global wheat production up to 30% if agricultural input availability were to drop by 75%. Western Europe and the US are among the areas most affected by shocks in agricultural inputs. Our study provides important information in high spatial definition to be used in future discussions on food security and resilience.

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Ion‐selective electrodes for quick on‐farm determination of ammonium and potassium concentrations in pig slurry

Piepel

Dittert

Olfs

2023

J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci.

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Background: Pig slurries account for a large proportion of the organic manure available worldwide. Because of the large range of slurry compositions, farmers need fast and accurate alternatives to laboratory methods to assess nutrient concentrations in these farm-based fertilizers. In this way, nutrient emissions into the environment can be reduced and targeted nutrition of crops can be implemented, while mineral fertilizers can be saved. Aim:The objective was to evaluate whether it is possible to rapidly determine ammonium and potassium concentrations in pig slurries on-farm using ion-selective electrodes (ISE) and to compare the measurement with established methods.Methods: A total of 391 pig slurry samples were collected from farms in north-west Germany, and ammonium and potassium concentrations were analyzed in the laboratory.Then the composition of pig slurries was measured with ISE, the Quantofix-N-Volumeter (QV) and an electrical conductivity (EC) meter and regression models were used to evaluate the on-farm quick tests. Results:For the 391 pig slurries studied, regressions with an R 2 of 0.92 for ammonium and 0.91 for potassium were achieved for concentrations measured with the ISE in comparison with laboratory analyzes. The model fits for the electrodes were significantly higher than those based on the EC for ammonium and potassium, and it was equivalent to the QV method for the assessment of the ammonium concentration. Conclusion:Due to the simple and rapid measurement, ISE offer high potential for onfarm quantification of ammonium and potassium concentrations in pig slurries.

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Food system resilience to phosphorus shortages on a telecoupled planet

Cited by 52 publications

References 46 publications

Half of global agricultural soil phosphorus fertility derived from anthropogenic sources

Half of global agricultural soil phosphorus fertility derived from anthropogenic sources

Agricultural input shocks decrease crop yields globally

Ion‐selective electrodes for quick on‐farm determination of ammonium and potassium concentrations in pig slurry

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