Mineral Fertilizer Use and the Environment International Fertilizer Industry Association United Nations Environment Programme

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3.1.3. Fertilizers and food
The exact contribution of mineral fertilizers to
agricultural production is debatable but in any
case the millions of field trials which have been
carried out throughout the world demonstrate
clearly their great influence on crop yields.
In an article in “The Observer”, New Delhi,
April 17, 1997, Dr. Swaminathan, a leading
Indian scientist, is reported as saying that
Fertilizer is the key to securing the food need of more
than 1.3 billion Indians by the year 2025. No
country has been able to increase agricultural
productivity without expanding the use of chemical
fertilizers. Working on a conservative population
forecast of 1.3 billion by 2025, India would need
30 to 35 million tonnes of NPK from chemical
fertilizers in addition to 10 million tonnes from
organic and biofertilizer sources, to produce the
minimum food grain need of 300 million tonnes.
Scientists have found that there was growing evidence
of the increasing deficiency of phosphate and potash
in soils, aggravated by the disproportionate
application of higher doses of N in relation to P and
K. Sulphur has been identified as crucial for
optimizing the yield from oilseeds, pulses, legumes
and high-yielding cereals.
N. E. Borlaug, a Nobel Prize winner, (1997),
speaking of Africa, stated: “My 53 years of
experience in low-income developing countries tells
me that small-scale farmers are loath to adopt such
“low-input, low-output” technologies since they tend
to perpetuate human drudgery and the risk of hunger.
This certainly has been our experience in Sasakawa-
Global 2000, where farmers have overwhelmingly
told us they want access to yield- increasing,
drudgery-reducing technology, and have proven that
they are able and enthusiastically willing to
modernize their production”.
Several institutions, among them the FAO,
IFPRI, UNDP, the US Department of Agriculture
and the World Bank, have made projections
concerning food security. They differ according to
the assumptions made, but essentially they are in
agreement that the world supply of food will have
to keep growing, and growing rapidly.
Agricultural investment, especially in research
and advisory services, will be essential if the
objective is to be achieved.

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