Amid Earth Day’s impassioned calls to save the planet for future generations, a disquieting irony emerges: Efforts to eradicate fossil fuels – a linchpin of modern agro-industrial systems – risk severing the very supply chains that make global food security possible. 

From famine to abundance: green revolution

Contemporary food production sustains a global populace of approximately 8 billion – and increasing – with a large percentage of individuals in wealthier countries consuming significantly beyond their needs. To meet this demand, global production of primary crops grew by a whopping 56% between 2000 and 2022, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). But how did this come to be?

There are multiple reasons why humanity is experiencing such a blessed increase in crop productivity, chief among them are growing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, warming temperatures and increasing use of fertilizer.

Some suggest – even demand – those pesticides and fertilizers be eliminated. However, feeding 8 billion people with food crops and animal protein, whose production is dependent on plants, is impossible without such aides to ensure harvests. In other words, billions of people would die without them.

While water, sunlight and the NPK triad (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) are the chemical basis for plant growth, a critical paradox persists: Though 78% of Earth’s atmosphere comprises nitrogen (existing molecularly as N2), this elemental bounty is biologically inert, so that plant roots cannot absorb it. Enter nitrogen-based fertilizers: humanity’s agronomic alchemy.

Magic of nitrogen fertilizers

The use of fertilizers correlates closely with output. In recent years, China, India and the U.S. have ranked first, second and third, respectively in agricultural production value and in the employment of nitrogen fertilizers. In 2022, China used nearly 25 million metric tons; India, more than 20 million; and the U.S. nearly 12 million.

In “Our World in Data,” Dr. Hannah Ritchie writes that nitrogen fertilizer “has supported 42% of global births over the past century.” The data suggests that, even by a conservative estimate, more than 3 billion people are being fed by crops grown with nitrogen fertilizers.

“There are a number of scientific and technological innovations which have allowed for rapid growth in crop productivity, particularly in the second half of the 20th century,” says Dr. Ritchie. “None of these had a more dramatic impact than the ability to produce synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.”

Fossil fuels and fertilizers: a pairing that feeds the world

However, what many analysts and climate activists do not acknowledge is that these life-saving fertilizers are made with the help of fossil fuels. Yes, the same fossil fuels that they blame for destroying our planet and which they brand as “anti-green.”

Nitrogen fertilizers include nitrate (NO3), ammonia (NH3), ammonium (NH4) or urea (CH4N2O). The Haber process is the primary industrial method for ammonia production. It transforms atmospheric nitrogen (N2) into ammonia (NH3) through a reaction with hydrogen (H2), employing finely divided iron metal as a catalyst.

The most common method for obtaining hydrogen is through steam methane reforming, which uses natural gas (methane) as a feedstock and releases carbon dioxide. Further, the process requires significant energy to operate at high temperatures and pressures, which is usually derived from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.

Some fertilizers require double the intensity of fossil fuels. Urea for example is made by reacting ammonia with carbon dioxide (CO₂). The CO₂ is often sourced from fossil fuel combustion or ammonia production byproducts, making urea production doubly dependent on hydrocarbons. India, the world’s largest producer of urea, has 32 manufacturing units that are fueled by hydrocarbons.

To decommission these fertilizer systems with no viable substitutes available is not environmental stewardship but rather a recklessness the would destroy the biophysical underpinning of food production in an act of mass murder. This Earth Day, celebrate fossil fuels and their critical role in transforming a once poverty-stricken civilization into a thriving one that has abundant food and highly efficient energy systems.

This article was first published by the CO2 Coalition and is reprinted here by permission.

Photo by James Baltz on Unsplash.