Phosphorus Matters - The Permaculture Research Institute

2/23/23, 11:38 AM Phosphorus Matters - The Permaculture Research Institute
COMPOST FOOD SHORTAGES SOIL COMPOSITION
SOIL CONSERVATION SOIL EROSION & CONTAMINATION
Phosphorus Matters
Marcin Gerwin  • January 14, 2009 7  15 minutes read
Part One: Closing the Phosphorus Cycle
Phosphate mine on Nauru island.

Currently part of it is reforested.
Photo: Jon Harald Søby
It might sound ridiculous, but for every container of bananas, coffee,

tea or cocoa imported, we should send back a shipment of a fluffy,
earth-like smelling compost. Why is that? With each container of food
we import nutrients taken up by plants from the soil. We import
calcium, potassium, magnesium, boron, iron, zinc, molybdenum,
copper and many others. One of the essential elements imported in
https://www.permaculturenews.org/2009/01/14/phosphorus-matters/ 1/23
food is phosphorus. For every ton of bananas we import 0.3 kg of

phosphorus, for every ton of cocoa it’s 5 kg and for ton of coffee it’s 3.3
kg of phosphorus. Tea is a bit more complicated, because the amount
of phosphorus depends on the origin of tea – for example in 1 ton of
tea leaves harvested in Sri Lanka there are some 3.5 kg of phosphorus,
while tea from South India contains 6.6 kg of phosphorus (1).
Each year some 13.5 million tons of bananas alone are exported around
the world (2), containing 4,000,000 kg of elemental phosphorus up
taken by the plants from tropical soils. And most of this phosphorus
never comes back to the soil it was removed from. Yes, but can’t the
farmers replace the nutrients lost using fertilizers? That’s what the
fertilizers are used for, are they not? Sure they can. Farmers can buy a
bag of ground phosphate rocks or guano (bird or bat droppings) or
even a bag of artificial fertilizer such as superphosphate if they don’t
farm organically. No problem. They can replace every kilogram of
phosphorus taken from the soil by plants and sent overseas with their
produce.
Phosphorus Molecules
So, why should we send compost back on ships? This would add extra
cost to the imported food and make it much more expensive! We
should start closing nutrients cycle soon, because the world reserves of
phosphate rocks, which are used for the production of phosphate
fertilizers, are declining. They can be depleted even this century (3).
The problem with the lack of phosphate fertilizers does not start,
however, when all phosphate rock reserves are gone. It starts as soon
as the demand for phosphate fertilizers exceeds the supply of
phosphate rocks available for export, meaning: farmers living in
countries that do not have a local source of phosphate rocks would like
to buy phosphate fertilizers, but there are not enough bags for
everyone. And this situation may appear within the next 10-20 years.
This short timeframe is based upon the assumption that the demand
for phosphate fertilizers will continue to grow and that within 10-20
years US reserves of phosphate rocks available for mining will be
considerably depleted and USA will have to rely on imported
phosphorus. It is unclear whether the phosphate exporting countries
will be able to respond adequately to keep up with the rising demand
by opening new mines or increasing production in the existing ones,
which otherwise could lead to lack of sufficient amount of phosphate
fertilizers on the market. A 50% rise in the US imports would require
50% rise of present world phosphate rock exports. A similar situation
may exist in countries other than USA, but it was not taken into
consideration due to lack of sufficient data. Demand for phosphate
fertilizers in the USA may drop, however, owing to fall of agricultural
production caused by droughts, depletion of water resources or by
other climate related events. This could slow down domestic
production of phosphate rocks and conserve these resources for a
longer period of time.
What plants need Phosphorus for?
White sweetclover. Photo: Kristian Peters
Phosphorus is one of the key mineral nutrients that are necessary for
plants growth. Phosphorus stimulates root growth, flowers blooming
and seed development. It is an essential component of DNA, RNA, cell
membranes, sugars and carbohydrates (4). Without phosphorus plants
just don’t grow and there is no substitute for it. Although in many soils
there are large reserves of phosphorus, it is often present in the form
that cannot be used by plants (such as insoluble calcium or aluminum
phosphate salts). Some plants, however, like white or yellow sweet
clover for example (5), can mobilize phosphate by secreting organic
acids (when harvested they can be used as a green manure with high
phosphorus content), but far more efficient for this job are
mycorrhizal fungi and microbes that secrete enzymes, various acids
and chelating agents that turn organic and inorganic phosphate into a
solution that can be taken up by plants (6). Nevertheless, when the
content of phosphorus in the soil is low, all that farmer can do is to
bring in some kind of phosphate fertilizer.
How much phosphate rocks is available for export?
Worldwide approximately 30 millions tons of phosphate rocks are

exported every year, mainly from Africa (62.8% in 2006) (7). It sounds
like a lot, but it is less than is needed for the consumption of a single
country – the USA – the largest consumer, producer and supplier of
phosphate fertilizers in the world. In 2006 the USA consumed 32.6
millions tons of phosphate rocks (8). Fortunately, USA is currently
almost self-sufficient in production of phosphate rocks. In 2007 US
imports accounted only for 2.8 millions ton of phosphate rocks (8.6%)
and 99% of it came from just one origin – Morocco.
Phosphate rocks mine in Togo.

Photo: Alexandra Pugachevskaya
However, the reserves of phosphate rocks in USA are limited. In 2007

there were only about 1,200 millions tons left (9). As soon as USA runs
out of its phosphorus there will be a huge demand for the phosphate
rocks. When might this happen? If the consumption in the USA
continues to grow, the US domestic reserves could be gone in 25 years
(10). At the current rate of production this could be in around 40 years.
Most of the phosphate rocks in USA are mined in Florida and according
to Stephen Jasinski from the U.S. Geological Survey “production in
Florida could begin to drop in about 5 years or imports will be needed if
the new mines are not opened (11).”
Demand for fertilizers is growing at the rate of 2.8% per year (12). It is
expected to continue to grow, because fertilizers are needed to feed the
increasing human population and to satisfy the need for biofuels. The
acreage of industrial farms around the world which rely on artificial
fertilizers may still increase in the years to come (e.g. in Russia, Brazil
or even Madagascar) and in consequence the overall demand for
phosphate fertilizers will rise. Certified organic farms can also use
phosphate rocks (in unprocessed form), when phosphorus is deficient
in the soil.
There are many countries like India, Australia, Poland and most of the
Western European countries which are completely dependent on
imports of phosphate rocks for fertilizing soils and growing food. And
we import it mainly from Morocco as well. Without phosphate
fertilizers yields of wheat, maize, tomatoes, strawberries, potatoes and

many other crops will drop and eventually they could even fail. In
Poland we have huge reserves of phosphate rocks. The problem is that
the content of elemental phosphate in these rocks is low, they are
located under villages, forests or farmlands or there is too much water
in the mines to continue extraction.
However, if we manage to close the phosphorus cycle, there’s no need

to worry about phosphate rock reserves. What we have mined so far
can circulate from farm to table and back again, without depleting the
soils. Let’s have a closer look where the phosphorus is leaking now.
Where does the phosphorus go?
In tropical climate phosphorus can be lost as soon as the farmer burns

the rainforest to clear the site. Most tropical soils are poor in nutrients,
and phosphorus is stored not in the soil, but in the vegetation. When
rainforest is burnt phosphorus is left in the remaining ashes, but these
ashes can be washed away by rains very quickly. There may be some
old branches or unburnt leaves left on the ground and microbes can
feed on them releasing phosphorus to the crops for some two years.
But later on, when there are no more sources of phosphorus for the
microbes to feed on and to release for plants, the land becomes
infertile. And the farmer? If he cannot afford to buy commercial
fertilizers he burns down another patch of the rainforest or he is forced
to move to the city. There are more than 300 million slash-and-burn
farmers worldwide, each one clearing about a hectare of forest a year
(13).
On many farms, however, fertilizers are applied and farmers continue

to grow crops. Some minimal amounts of phosphorus may leach from
farm to groundwater, especially when artificial soluble fertilizer is
used (such as superphosphate) (14). Most phosphorus losses occur
through surface soil erosion, when soil is washed away by strong rain,
or through harvesting of plants. Runoff of the nutrient rich water from
the fields into the streams, lakes and oceans often causes explosion of
the algae population and can lead to depletion of oxygen, seriously

affecting aquatic animals and even coral reefs.
And what was the former one? Harvesting of plants? That’s right. With
each apple, carrot, cucumber, coffee, cherry or watermelon a small bit
of phosphorus is taken away from the soil. It can be eaten by the
farmer and his family or loaded on truck and transported to the
market. It can be also shipped overseas to the foreign supermarkets. So
long nutrients! Have a good time in Italy or France! Please come back…
one day.
Phosphate processing plant in

Soda Springs, USA, operated byMonsanto.
Source: The Center for Land Use Interpretation
Before food reaches the table many crops are processed and there are
various residues left which contain phosphorus, e.g. orange peels or
rice husks. They are either composted or sent to landfill. Then, finally,
the consumer prepares a meal from the food that farmers harvested,
and then leftovers with the precious phosphorus are thrown into the
garbage or on the compost pile. The meal is eaten and out of the
pizzas, spaghettis and apple pies only less than 1% of phosphorus is
absorbed by our bodies (15) and remaining 99% is, in industrialized
countries, flushed down the toilet. The content goes to a wastewater
treatment plant. Treated biosolids from the treatment plants are
reused as soil amendments or sent to the landfills. Part of the
phosphorus from the wastewater treatment plant is discharged with

treated water into the rivers or the sea.
Not all phosphate rocks are used for production of fertilizers. Around
5% are used as animal feed supplements and another 5% for industrial
applications, e.g. for the manufacture of detergents. Some of us (like
the author) are allergic to phosphates in soaps or washing powders
and are a living proof that we do not need to use them at all. There are
plenty of natural soaps and washing powders without phosphates we
can buy or we can make our own.
Phosphate is used also for production of glyphosate, a herbicide which

is known under a trade name Roundup. The manufacturer of Roundup,
Monsanto, owns even a whole phosphate mine and rock processing
plant in Idaho, USA. Luckily, organic gardeners don’t have to spray any
of these. A much better idea would be to use the remaining phosphate
rock reserves to restore degraded lands, rather than to produce
herbicides or detergents.
Closing the nutrients cycle
Ideally the same amount of

nutrients that left the farm
should come back to it. To
achieve this goal we should
compost or ferment all residues
from farms, food processing
plants and households and
make them available for
farmers. And yes, we need to
compost urine and feces as
well. There are many types of
compost toilets, including the
simplest sawdust toilet to the commercial types with electric fans. If
handled properly they don’t smell badly and the final product of the
compost toilet is just a plain ordinary compost. It can be collected in
the city in special containers, standing along the curb near the
containers for recycling glass and plastics. Joseph Jenkins’ “Humanure

Handbook” is a great resource on the subject.
All organic waste can be collected as a part of a municipality recycling

program and leftovers from the kitchen can be picked up weekly from
the separate curbside container. For backyard gardeners and farmers
who eat their own food there are many methods of composting to
choose from – buckets, triangle cages, compost tumblers, worm
composting, loose heaps or classic wooden containers. There are even
composters which can be kept directly in the kitchen without any
suspicious smells.
It seems also a good idea to extract carbon and hydrogen from the food
residues in the form of biogas which is primarily methane (CH4). It can
be used for cooking, heating, electricity generation or for powering
vehicles. The exciting thing about biogas is that we don’t waste any of
the minerals from the organic matter – carbon is taken by plants from
the air in the form of carbon dioxide and hydrogen comes from water.
After fermentation process in a biodigester the organic matter is still
perfectly useful as a fertilizer.
If the resources of phosphate rocks become depleted this organic waste

recycling program will be crucial for farmers. They will be able to buy
or receive finished compost according to the amount of food they sold.
It may sound absurd, but the content of phosphorus or other nutrients
in crops may eventually be counted in the future, so that we can
determine how much compost the farmer should receive. Ideally local
food should be involved in this scheme to minimize transport needs.
And what about the food from overseas farms like coffee or tea? Well,
things get much more complicated here. Theoretically, we could
exchange nutrients in the form of food, so that for every kilogram of
coffee would send back wheat or barley with the equal content of
phosphorus. What farmers can do now is to bring compost from the
cities, where people eat imported food. The other option is sending
compost back. Hmm… Wouldn’t it be just perfect to have a village scale
economy where all nutrients would circulate without cars, trucks,
cargo ships and complex municipality programs?
Growing food security
Trees in bloom in the Hunza

Valley. Photo: bongo vongo
In places like the Hunza Valley (currently northern Pakistan) and

many others around the world, people have grown food in one place
for hundreds of years without depleting the soil. As Rob Hopkins
writes in his Transition Handbook about the Hunza Valley:

Here was a society which lived within its
limits and had evolved a dazzlingly
sophisticated yet simple way of doing so. All
the waste, including human waste, was
carefully composted and returned to the
land. The terraces which had been built into
the mountainsides over centuries were
irrigated through a network of channels that
brought mineral-rich water from the glacier

above down to the fields with astonishing
precision.
Apricot trees were everywhere, as well as

cherry, apple, almond and other fruit and nut
trees. Around and beneath the trees grew
potatoes, barley, wheat and other vegetables.
The fields were orderly but not regimented.
Plants grew in small blocks, rather than in
huge monocultures. Being on the side of a
mountain, I invariably had to walk up and
down hills a great deal, and soon began to
feel some of the fitness for which the people
of Hunza are famed. The paths were lined
with dry stone walls, and were designed for
people and animals, not for cars.
People always seemed to have time to stop

and talk to each other and spend time with
the children who ran barefoot and dusty
through the fields. Apricots were harvested
and spread out to dry on the rooftops of the
houses, a dazzling sight in the bright
mountain sun. Buildings were built from
locally-made mud bricks, warm in the winter
and cool in the summer. And there was
always the majestic splendour of the
mountains towering above. Hunza is quite
simply the most beautiful, tranquil, happy
and abundant place I have ever visited,
before or since (16).
Rakaposhi mountain near the

town of Gilgit, Hunza Valley.
Photo: bongo vongo
Villages can provide a good life and it is easy to design a local food
system that ensures food security there. Food security means that all
people have access to safe, nutritious and affordable food, at all times,
without degrading the supporting systems (17). No matter if your food
comes from the grocery store or the backyard garden, it contains some
amount of nutrients it has taken up from the soil where it was grown.
If we wish to sustain fertility of our soils, and thus food security, we
need to return these nutrients to the soil, so that our tomatoes, corn
and apple trees will be able to grow and produce crops forever.
In a natural environment this nutrients cycle is supported by a myriad

tiny creatures. There are bacteria and fungi in the soil that hold the
nutrients and extract them from rocks or the air. There are nematodes,
protozoa, arthropods and earthworms that cycle these nutrients and
make them available for plants (18). We, humans, are also a part of the
soil food web. Our job is to return the wastes to the soil. We can design
our farms so that they will work just like natural systems, cycling the
nutrients over and over again. A good example of such a system in an

old growth forest. It doesn’t need fertilizing, weeding or irrigating. It
grows by itself and it is always productive. That’s a clever system, isn’t
it?
Beach in Sopot, Poland. Photo: Marcin Gerwin
We can design for food security in cities as well, but it’s not as easy as
in villages. Most people living in the cities buy food rather than grow it
on their own, so the whole economic system must be working
properly, so that they will be able to afford it. The food shortages in
2008 around the world were not caused by a lack of food, but because
people didn’t have money to buy it. The first thing to do would be to
start growing food right in the city. On vacant parking lots, on roofs, in
backyards. But what if there is not enough space? I live in a small city
on the coast of the Baltic sea. Sopot is a summer resort bordered by the
sea, a landscape park and two large cities. The land here is among the
most expensive in Poland. There is no way one could buy a vacant lot
for a vegetable garden, it would cost a fortune. We do have many
allotments, but there’s not enough for everyone. So, what can we do?
Wooden pier in Sopot. Photo: Marcin Gerwin
Right now access to food is not a problem. It is available in every

grocery store and in all supermarkets. It’s not an issue. With peak-oil
or unexpected weather events this could change. With the lack of
phosphate fertilizers it could change as well. A large portion of food in
Poland is grown in the conventional way and farmers apply artificial
fertilizers and spray pesticides. Some of them believe that plants
without fertilizers don’t grow, so I think it may be a little hard to try to
convince them to use compost instead of the factory-made fertilizers.
I also find it hard to believe that everyone in Sopot could easily accept
compost toilets. We would have to recover nutrients from the
treatment plant, which is located… er… I must admit I don’t know
where our sewage goes to. We will have to collect organic waste,
however, that’s what the European Union regulations will make us to
do in the years to come (you see, there are some positive aspects of our
county being an EU member). We could also start a co-operation
program with the farmers from the area, who could supply food
directly to our city, rather than through distributors. We could have
long-term contracts with them, just like in the Fairtrade scheme. We
could set a guaranteed minimum price for farmers, so that their
security would improve as well. And what if the economic system
collapses? Then we need a land reform.
Continue to: Phosphorus Matters II – Keeping Phosphorus on Farms
References:
(1) Phosphorus content in food based upon: Organic Farming in the

Tropics and Subtropics: Exemplary Description of 20 Crops,
Naturland, second edition 2001.
(2) Calculated from: Banana facts, IITA Research for Development

Review, https://r4dreview.org/2008/09/banana-facts/, accessed on
14.09.2008.
(3) D. Cordell, S. White, The Australian Story of Phosphorus, 2008, p. 1.
(4) S. B. Carrol, S. D. Salt, Ecology for Gardeners, 2004, p. 149.
(5) Sweetclovers, UC SAREP, Online Cover Crop Database,

https://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/cgi-bin/ccrop.EXE/show_crop_41,
accessed on 15.09.2008.
(6) Ibidem, p. 116 – 117.
(7) Production and International Trade Statistics, International

Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA),
https://www.fertilizer.org/ifa/statistics/pit_public/pit_public_statist
ics.asp, accessed 14.09.2008.
(8) S. M. Jasinski, Phosphate Rock, Mineral Commodity Summaries,

January 2008, p. 124, (available at:
minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/phosphate_rock/).
(9) Ibidem.
(10) D. Cordell, S. White, op. cit.
(11) S. Jasinski, Phosphate Rock (Advance Release), 2007 Minerals

Yearbook, p. 56.3.
(12) P. Heffer and M. Prud’homme, Summary Report “Medium-Term

Outlook for Global Fertilizer Demand, Supply and Trade: 2008-2012”,
76th IFA Annual Conference, Vienna, May 2008, p. 4.
(13) D. Elkan, The Rainforest Saver, The Ecologist Magazine,

01.02.2005, https://www.theecologist.co.uk/pages/archive_detail.asp?
content_id=424.
(14) S. B. Carrol, S. D. Salt, op. cit., 117.
(15) T. N. Neset, L. Andersson, Environmental impact of food

production and consumption, in: Water for Food, 2008, p. 102.
(16) R. Hopkins, The Transition Handbook, 2008, from the

introduction.
(17) For more information on food security watch presentation given

by Bruce Darrel: Converging Crises, Policy Responses: Planning For
Food Security, Festa Seminar Series, June 19th, 2008.
https://www.feasta-
multimedia.org/2008/seminars/Bruce_Darrell.mov
(18) The soil food web is described in detail in the excellent book
Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfells and Wayne Lewis.
#compost #Food Shortages #importation
#Soil Composition #Soil Conservation
#soil contamination
7 Comments
Thomas Fischbacher
January 15, 2009 at 2:46 am
For those who like to provide sound scientific bases for their
arguments:
The following bit is taken from the soil science textbook “The
Nature and
Properties of Soils” by Brady & Weil (I once used that excerpt in a
discussion, hence just had it available):
Table 20.14: Average N, P, and K Balances, kg/ha/yr, of the

Arable Land in Several African Countries Projected for the Year
2000
Such negative balances (inputs minus outputs) represent a literal

mining
of African soils that simply must be stopped if the quality of all life
on this continent is to be sustained.
Balance, kg/ha/yr
Country Nitrogen (N) Phosphorous (P) Potassium (K)
Cameroon -21 -2 -13

Ethiopia -47 -7 -32
Ghana -35 -4 -20
Kenya -46 -1 -36
Malawi -67 -10 -48
Nigeria -37 -4 -31
Rwanda -60 -11 -61
Senegal -16 -2 -14
Tanzania -32 -5 -21
Zimbabwe -27 2 -26
Average -39 -5 -30
From Stoorvogel, et al. (1993)
Stoorvogel, J.J., and E.M.A. Smaling, 1990. “Assessment of soil

nutrient
depletion in SubSaharan Africa: 1983-2000. Report no. 28
(Wageningen,
Netherlands: Winand Staring Centre for Integrated Land, Soil and
Water
Research.)
Reply
Fred Howie
January 18, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Although this article is principally about soils the author fails to

mention the role of phosphorus in the human/animal body.
It’s role in RNA & DNA in plants is matched in animal bodies along
with the use of it for energy production, ADP & ATP not to mention
in our teeth, Calcium phosphate hydroxyapatite.
This article would have more impact on those who choose to
ignore organic chemistry as being too difficult to understand if
they realised that when all the phosphorus is gone, then so are we.
Reply
Marcin Gerwin
Fred, the author is aware of the importance of phosphorus for

human nutrition :), but it is beyond the scope of this article. If we
make phosphorus available for plants, we will be also able to
receive it with food. That’s why keeping a sustainable level of
phosphorus in the soil is fundamental.
Reply
Thomas Fischbacher
January 19, 2009 at 10:00 pm
I do perceive a major problem here in that *we* are well aware of a

number of things most people out there are not. In particular, I
vividly remember a discussion with a professional neoclassical
economist in which he claimed the solution to the phosphate
problem would be an export tax on phosphate-rich produce, so
that “the market” would take care of punishing extensive stress
on the phosphate cycle.
This discussion taught me some important things:
(1) Many economists seem to suffer from the problem of not being
able to understand a process such as SADIMET, believing that by
coming up with a (questionable) suggestion, they did in fact
manage to “solve the problem in a way that turned out to work” –
not being able to distinguish between a plan and its
implementation. I identify this as one major reason for the mess
we are in: Many planners neither really know what a “model” is,
nor what a “plan” is, nor what the role of “assumptions” is.
(2) Maybe you know the saying “if all you’ve got is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail”. Economists are trained to think in
terms of “conflicts of interest”, and helping people to “make
decisions” by giving them “more freedom” to weigh one thing
against another, where a “useful tool” is “monetarization”: If
everything is expressed in monetary terms, this gives the
individual maximal “freedom” to achieve X by deciding whether to
cut back on A, D, and F, or A, E, and H. The problem with such
“conflict-focused” thinking is that it misses a very important
point: Nature is like a big jigsaw puzzle we only understand very
partially. The pieces are made to fit – to the greatest extent, co-
evolution took care of that – and we have to use clues from paying
attention to detail in order to find out what works and what does
not. If we try to make something work which cannot, we will get
feedback in multiple ways that something is wrong – high energy
requirements, loss of nutrients, species loss, social unrest, etc.
Whereas the sane approach would be to find the root cause of these
problems and address that, people schooled in conflict-oriented
thinking will not try to address multiple symptoms
symultaneously by solving the core problem, but instead find ways
how people get the “freedom” to choose whether they rather want
to invest effort into “fixing symptom X” or “fixing symptom Y”. It
is precisely this form of stupidity which leads to patently absurd
ideas such as “protection of the environment is something that
needs effort, so it will be the easier the stronger our economy is,
for if we have the capacity to satisfy many needs, we also will have
a strong capacity to care for the environment – and hence, ‘we need
economic growth to save the planet'”.
(3) Education is a key issue. People will not be able to make good dec
they know a bit about the true role of some key resources. Literally,
“freedom” to rape the soil, but if we do so, in the end, the soil will r
the precise sense of the word. What do we think brutal armed confli
organized mass killings, mass rape, and all its atrocities comes from
of the natural resource base easily leads to such forms of destructio
civilization.
Reply
Chris Kelly
Thomas, some very good thinking. We are in the mess we are in

precisely because of the ideas and strategies implemented on a
worldwide scale by miseducated economists. Economists need to
understand the underlying laws of abundance of nature and her
resources. The apple tree, which is born from one seed, and
springs forth to give thousands of apples each year is a model we
need to study and try to implement. The disconnect from concept
to imlementation may never be fully satisfied, but the underlying
beliefs and philosophy of abundance, will more accurately reflect
the laws of abundance of nature. In other words, it is precisely
miseducated consultants and advisers and economists, ignorant of
the lessons of Hunza(and other locales) who need to be removed
from positions of influence, replaced with wholistic minded men
and women. These fresh minded visionaries, will usher in the
revolution of nature so needed globally. Keep up the good
thinking, Thomas.
Reply
Thomas Fischbacher
January 23, 2009 at 4:44 am
There are two very important aspects to this:
(*) You remember that bit in the Permaculture Designer’s Manual

in the beginning about connecting up the chicken as a component
in such a way that it can provide a lot of useful functions by just
living in a context which is stress-free as it is close to its co-
evolutionary one? This is the way of thinking resulting from the
“problems often are symptoms of confusion about something
fundamental” approach – the Fukuoka approach, basically. In
contrast, the “conflict-oriented thinking” approach also
“optimises” the design, but with respect to a very unwisely chosen
objective that leaves many important aspects out of the equation.
Essentially, it leads to ideas such as optimising with respect to
conversion efficiency only, hence feeding antibiotics to chicken so
that the bugs healthy animals have (and need) in their intestines
get killed and do not compete with the chicken organism for
calories. Of course, such “optimising” will give the single clear-
cut answer to a single clear-cut question, but: is it the right
question to be posed? Even if we only included the issue of
breeding antibiotics-resistant diseases into the analysis, this
would completely shift the picture.
(*) Another extremely important issue about orthodox economics:

what we see right now is a situation that may be at the brink of
bloody riots in some countries that suffer from the financial
meltdown. People are angry at the very same politicians they
elected. Why is this? I think it is extremely important here to pay
very close attention to our built-in mechanisms of self-
justification. As the population cannot accept having made major
mistakes, they need a scapegoat, and for sure, it is the politicians.
Concerning climate change, once we, the

population (and I deliberately include myself here, for reasons that
should become clear from what I’m saying) see how dramatic the
situation *really* is by now, facing the truth won’t be easy to
every one of us. So, the natural reaction will be to find scapegoats.
Now one does not have to look further than to William Nordhaus’
book “The Economics of Climate Change”
(which won a prestigious prize in 2005) to discover that our
collective planning was based to a very large degree on our
economist’s thinking, which is just full of very fundamental and
obvious errors far beyond any imagination. Once this happens,
people will start a massacre and the whole world will drown in
blood.
The only way I see in order to prevent this is to teach people about s
justification, cognitive dissonance, other forms of cognitive bias, an
scientifically well-established built-in “software bugs” of the hum
fast. The only possible way forward is a constructive approach whic
the idea “if we as a society could not make sure such enormously da
nonsense does not make it to the planning stage but gets thrown ou
then this means we all failed, and to some degree are responsible fo
mess.”
Neoclassical economics may take much of the blame, but so does ev

who learned about this and looked away rather than ensuring that t
process eliminates such nonsense. (I personally actually am an activ
and in fact do work towards making the huge errors in these “scient
publications” widely known.) And so does every journalist who lear
and did not write about this. And so does every citizen who did not t
to check whether our economists’ ideas seem anyhow reasonable an
madness to continue. So, we really are all responsible for this, mayb
degree, but unless we learn to accept that we cannot just unload the
economists, we will go down the road of civil war and total annihila
than the road of “how amazing to live at the time when the biggest
species’ entire history got cleared up: We have been so VERY wrong
important than taking revenge and killing those people responsible
destroying the young generation’s future is to actually get the probl
out. We have to collectively talk about self-deception, and once we u
everybody must face one’s very own.” So, we have to invest collectiv
educating people about what self-deception has made of us, and go
we must ensure every single person who manages to discover their
of guilt is treated with highest respect. Our biggest problem is that o
culture did not really evolve a collective concept of honoring the abi
*overcome* self-deception above anything else. Prestigious prizes
to people who can point at having found out very clever things, but
manage to admit and see the true mechanisms underlying their mo
forms of failure.
It is out of the question that quite a lot of published work done by ec

such as Nordhaus has to be reclassified as “unscientific due to deep
the most obvious immediate observations”. But it is also out of the
the only viable way to get there is to employ the engine of self-justi
advantage, rather than having to fight it. Essentially, this is what Ga
violent strategies boil down to: Every person has to retain a positive
many would rather die than giving it up. Hence, the way to sort out
ally with this engine of self-justification in the opponent by persist
at the problems while never using violence, but kindness even when
with violence. All that the utilisation of even the slightest bit of viol
to achieve is to give the opponent’s engine of self-justification a ha
to itself why it also has to resort to violence. Thanks to the engine o
justification, human beings would probably stand a better chance tr
gravity than to resist getting into an enormously serious inner confl
somebody who persistently keeps on responding with kindness, wh

sticking to their point – which after all suggests it must be more im
one originally thought it to be.
Gandhi called it “non-violence”. The problem with this term is that

does not understand the true nature of violence, so trying to stick a
profound idea which tries to define it in terms of the negation of som
not understand either will not be met with much success.
Hence, we need a better term for Gandhi’s idea. Rather than “non-v
struggle”, or “Satyagraha”, how about using some notion that is in
because it is outrageously paradoxical? My own suggestion would b
Warfare”.
Reply
Md. Hedayet Ullah

October 20, 2014 at 4:58 pm
I am doing a research work on finding the transfer factor of the

elements from the soil to tea leaves for a tea garden in chittagong
city, in Bangladesh.
For a particular location of the garden I got phosphorus in tea

leaves which is 14227 ppm but there was no phosphorus in soil of
that particular location, experiment was done using PIXE ( Proton
Induced X-ray Emission ) technique.
How would you justify that? I will be grateful if you provide me

with proper guideline of things work behind it.
Reply

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2/23/23, 11:38 AM Phosphorus Matters - The Permaculture Research Institute

COMPOST FOOD SHORTAGES SOIL COMPOSITION

SOIL CONSERVATION SOIL EROSION & CONTAMINATION

Part One: Closing the Phosphorus Cycle

Phosphate mine on Nauru island.

It might sound ridiculous, but for every container of bananas, coffee,

food is phosphorus. For every ton of bananas we import 0.3 kg of

What plants need Phosphorus for?

White sweetclover. Photo: Kristian Peters

How much phosphate rocks is available for export?

Worldwide approximately 30 millions tons of phosphate rocks are

Phosphate rocks mine in Togo.

However, the reserves of phosphate rocks in USA are limited. In 2007

fertilizers yields of wheat, maize, tomatoes, strawberries, potatoes and

However, if we manage to close the phosphorus cycle, there’s no need

Where does the phosphorus go?

In tropical climate phosphorus can be lost as soon as the farmer burns

On many farms, however, fertilizers are applied and farmers continue

the algae population and can lead to depletion of oxygen, seriously

Phosphate processing plant in

phosphorus from the wastewater treatment plant is discharged with

Phosphate is used also for production of glyphosate, a herbicide which

Closing the nutrients cycle

Ideally the same amount of

containers for recycling glass and plastics. Joseph Jenkins’ “Humanure

All organic waste can be collected as a part of a municipality recycling

If the resources of phosphate rocks become depleted this organic waste

Growing food security

Trees in bloom in the Hunza

In places like the Hunza Valley (currently northern Pakistan) and

brought mineral-rich water from the glacier

Apricot trees were everywhere, as well as

People always seemed to have time to stop

Rakaposhi mountain near the

In a natural environment this nutrients cycle is supported by a myriad

nutrients over and over again. A good example of such a system in an

Beach in Sopot, Poland. Photo: Marcin Gerwin

Wooden pier in Sopot. Photo: Marcin Gerwin

Right now access to food is not a problem. It is available in every

Continue to: Phosphorus Matters II – Keeping Phosphorus on Farms

(1) Phosphorus content in food based upon: Organic Farming in the

(2) Calculated from: Banana facts, IITA Research for Development

(3) D. Cordell, S. White, The Australian Story of Phosphorus, 2008, p. 1.

(4) S. B. Carrol, S. D. Salt, Ecology for Gardeners, 2004, p. 149.

(5) Sweetclovers, UC SAREP, Online Cover Crop Database,

(6) Ibidem, p. 116 – 117.

(7) Production and International Trade Statistics, International

(8) S. M. Jasinski, Phosphate Rock, Mineral Commodity Summaries,

(10) D. Cordell, S. White, op. cit.

(11) S. Jasinski, Phosphate Rock (Advance Release), 2007 Minerals

(12) P. Heffer and M. Prud’homme, Summary Report “Medium-Term

76th IFA Annual Conference, Vienna, May 2008, p. 4.

(13) D. Elkan, The Rainforest Saver, The Ecologist Magazine,

(14) S. B. Carrol, S. D. Salt, op. cit., 117.

(15) T. N. Neset, L. Andersson, Environmental impact of food

(16) R. Hopkins, The Transition Handbook, 2008, from the

(17) For more information on food security watch presentation given

#compost #Food Shortages #importation

#Soil Composition #Soil Conservation

Table 20.14: Average N, P, and K Balances, kg/ha/yr, of the

I do perceive a major problem here in that we are well aware of a