Global redistribution of phosphorus use could improve food security
If the use and reuse of the finite resource phosphorus as a nutrient for plants were to be handled with greater care worldwide it would become possible to produce sufficient food for the global population in and after 2050. In addition to being home to a considerable proportion of the global population, China is also a major producer and user of phosphorus. Sheida Sattari, a PhD student at Wageningen University, has shown how the more sustainable use of phosphorus in China can have positive global effects. Sattari determined that Europe and China, where a large amount of phosphorus has been captured in the soil in the past decades as a result of fertilisation, can make considerable savings on the use of phosphorus fertiliser. This can benefit countries in Africa, where investments in phosphorus fertilisation are essential to increase food production.