CAMPRIDGE, Md. — There are across the globe what Ford West calls “the new hungry.”
They are those not only in the developing countries but in China and India, for example, which have discovered capitalism in a format they can accept — in China, it is being called “autocratic capitalism” — and where a new middle class has appeared.
One-third of the population of the globe lives in China and India, and many of those people are demanding improved diets and more protein.
West, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Fertilizer Institute, talked about these things at the 130th annual convention of Penn Ag Industries, held Sept. 14-16 at the Chesapeake Bay Hyatt Regency.
The world population, West said, is expanding by about 80 million people a year. As the population grows, so does the demand for food. And, West warned, we may be losing our ability to grow enough food to meet that demand.
Crops need two things to grow — water and fertilizer. The late Norman Borlaug, recognized as the “father of the Green Revolution” who brought modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan and India in the mid-20th century, noted that “without fertilizer, the game is over.”
West acknowledge that the price of fertilizer had skyrocketed along with all other costs of crop production, but said that it is fueled by the demand for food.
“There is a lot of concern about the increase in the price of fertilizer,” he said, “but it’s the run-up in the demand for food.”
And that demand, for food and for fertilizer, is going to rise in tandem in the future. West presented this scenario. The average yield of corn in the United States is now about 150 bushels an acre.
To meet the demand for food in 2025, West said, the average corn yield will have to approach 225 bushels an acre. Carry that projection to 2050. The average corn yield will need to be 300 bushels an acre.
“These are staggering numbers for our industry if we are to meet the demand for food,” he said.
So what’s needed? What do we need to do? We need to increase food aid into countries that cannot produce feed grains. We need to bring a new “Green Revolution” to Africa, a la Norman Borlaug.
We need to lower trade tariffs and remove export prohibitions. We need expanded ag research into how to increase food grain production.
But perhaps most importantly in the short term, we need to increase the efficiency with which we use nitrogen fertilizer.
West referenced here a paper produced by Dr. Terry L. Roberts, president of the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI), which began operations in January 2007.
(See Dr. Roberts’ paper on Page 6 of this issue.)
The approach is simple, Dr. Roberts wrote. Use the right product, at the right rate and put it in the right place at the right time.
West said that plans are being made by leaders within the ag industry to “get that message to farmers.”