Nitrogen Fertilizer Shortages Might Lead to a Massive Drop in Global Crop Yield This Year

The shortage of Natural gas has affected multiple industries in diverse ways. Agriculture is one of the industries that was hit the worst. As Fertilizer’s rich in nitrogen have been facing a huge drop in production due to the absence of natural gas which is one of the main components that help make nitrogenous fertilizers.

Nitrogenous nano fertilizers are specifically needed to boost the production of crops like canola, corn and paddy and hence are essential fertilizers utilized in the agricultural sector.

Countries like China and Russia which are two of the four most nitrogen producing nations of the world have started to curb their Nitrogen fertilizer exports because of the slowdown in the production of the same. Recently India has been delivering Nano Liquid Nitrogenous Fertilisers to Sri Lanka due to the island nations urgent growing need for crop production boosting fertiliser.

Nitrogen – A Vital Plant Nutrient

The effort to get adequate nitrogen into the soil to grow abundant harvests has been a constant struggle through human history. Photosynthesis requires both nitrogen and phosphorus; without these, plants would become sickly and stunted. Nitrogen is abundant in nature, accounting for 80% of the atmosphere, but most plants can't utilise it until it's transformed to its "reactive" form, which restricts where they may grow.

Early farmers found a way to do this by utilising the slash and burn cultivation technique. However, now that we live in an age where we have developed a more efficient way to inject more potent nitrogen into the soil in the form of fertiliser( Haber- Bosch Process)  that can be easily absorbed by the plants, humans have completely become dependent on this very process.

Although the process itself is dependable the components used by it make it more unsustainable as Natural gas, one of the major ingredients used is a non-renewable source of energy.

This is the crux of the reason why the world as a whole finds itself in a fertiliser crisis.

A drop in crop yield globally right now also would mean less food for people as a whole after all we need to feed 7.9 billion people with food on a daily basis to achieve food security totally as a race. Hence we totally need to find more sustainable crop production boosting techniques to balance world hunger as a whole.