British investor Jeremy Grantham says two crucial
fertilizers – phosphorous and potash – are going to run out some day.
Both are controlled by so few companies and countries that
they are “near monopolies,” he says in a column he penned for Nature magazine.
Neither phosphorous nor potash can “be made, cannot be
substituted, are necessary to grow all life forms, and are mined and depleted,”
Grantham wrote.
Canada and some former Russian states have more than 70
per cent of the world’s known potash and Morocco 85 per cent of all high-grade
phosphates.
“ It is the most important quasi-monopoly in economic
history.
“What happens when these fertilizers run out is a
question I can’t get satisfactorily answered and, believe me, I have tried.
There seems to be only one conclusion: their use must be drastically reduced in the next 20 to 40 years or we will begin to starve,” Grantham wrote.
There seems to be only one conclusion: their use must be drastically reduced in the next 20 to 40 years or we will begin to starve,” Grantham wrote.
