Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development



Food for Today or Tomorrow? Where Sustainability and Development Diverge

Dead zones” are oceanic areas which are “hypoxic” or low in oxygen, and which, therefore, are unable to support marine life. The number of these dead zones has increased dramatically over the years. There is speculation that this is due to the presence of unnaturally high amounts of certain nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which may cause a boom in the growth of certain types of phytoplankton, causing an algal bloom; these phytoplankton suck the oxygen out of the water. This in turn causes fish, and other creatures that lived in these locations, to either die or forces their migration elsewhere.

The effect on humans is clear: these areas now become useless for fishermen, who depend on them as a valuable source of protein. One of the most well-known cases of a dead zone is the Gulf of Mexico, into which the Mississippi river empties. The problem, and heart of this entry, is that one main reason that these areas become overdosed in these nutrients is the same reason why we are able feed the 8 billion people on this planet: fertilizer. Fertilizers, which  counter the depletion of natural soil nutrients, and are thus necessarily rich in concentrated nitrogen and phosphorus, help increase, often dramatically, the yield of the land. However when it rains, these excess nutrients partially wash away with runoff, and make their way into lakes and streams, and eventually oceans, creating hypoxic environments in both fresh and salt water bodies, causing dead zones as well as making the water unfit for human consumption.

Yet to argue against the use of fertilizer in the agricultural sector is a challenge. With an increasing population, there will naturally be increasing demand for food. This isn’t a difficult scenario to imagine, especially considering the current food crisis across the world, with drought-induced famine in the Horn of Africa, and spiking food prices worldwide leading to increased political instability. The need for greater intensification of food production is high, and given the depletion of soil nutrients in many agricultural areas due to overuse or poor agricultural practices the demand for fertilizers will only continue to increase. But at what cost to the environment?

There are many cases where the use of fertilizer is less controversial than advocating against it. In places like Malawi fertilizer use has been hailed as a magic bullet against one of the greatest detriments to improved human development: famine. Malawi was long seen as ruined for agricultural production, as its land was overused by desperate farmers who, at the risk of starvation, could not let their land lie fallow, depleting natural nutrients in the soil. However, a new fertilizer subsidy program made fertilizer affordable for many Malawian farmers, and an amazing harvest later Malawi no longer was forced to import food to feed its growing population.

So what can be done when prominent development experts, including Columbia University’s own Jeffrey Sachs, advocate strongly for increasing fertilizer use, despite warnings from other expert’s about the detrimental environmental impact of fertilizer overuse? Fertilizers do not only increase the number of dead zones; their creation and use releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. They are causing a decline in the amount of potable water available, and are increasing acid rain. Even organic fertilizers are associated with a range of problems.

Yet with a population that is growing in size every day, can we afford to stop, or even limit the use of fertilizers if the risks include widespread starvation?



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