Agriculture is very important for the sustainability of a civilization. Good agricultural management is required to meet the food needs of a population.
One of the determining factors of the success of an agricultural program can be seen from the security of fertilizer supply to farmers. This is because without fertilizer, agricultural yields are not optimal, thus sacrificing the instability of food prices which tend to rise due to lack of supply.
Not to mention if during the planting season there is a disease in the plants, requiring additional fertilizer if planting again. This makes fertilizer supply and stock very important to consider and don't let negligence lead to scarcity.
However, many parties are more concerned with the issue of fuel for transportation. Transportation is indeed a pillar of the economy but without people getting enough food, transportation will not drive the economy.
In fact, recently many parties are afraid of the impact of carbon dioxide in the air, which encourages innovation and investment in the field of renewable energy. Nevertheless, our food sector is neglected, for example, to produce fertilizer currently is the same as before and there is no innovation that will save the fertilizer supply until its price stability.
Where Fertilizer Come From ?
Popular fertilizers contain the macro nutrients required by plants. These macro nutrients are Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.
Nitrogen functions to green the leaves and promote stem growth. Phosphorus functions for flower and fruit growth, while Potassium strengthens the roots.
Potassium and Phosphorus are minerals mined from the earth. From the beginning, these minerals are ready to be used as fertilizer, although they need to be purified through a little process to obtain high-quality fertilizer.
On the other hand, fertilizers that contain Nitrogen are made with human assistance. Most Nitrogen-containing fertilizers are made from natural gas that goes through a certain process to produce Nitrogen that is ready to be absorbed by plants.
Since fertilizer resources are not included in renewable resources, the future of agriculture must be considered. Typically, if a commodity has a limited stock in nature, its price will continue to rise because the stock is continuously decreasing.
Fluctuation Of Gas Price
We know that fertilizers containing nitrogen are created from natural gas through a certain process to obtain nitrogen elements that can be easily absorbed by plants. The price of nitrogen fertilizer depends on the price of natural gas.
Recently, there has been global uncertainty due to war and other factors. This also affects the energy prices. The problem is that nitrogen fertilizer is derived from an energy commodity, namely natural gas.
Nitrogen fertilizer is the most important fertilizer compared to others. For example, to produce grass for livestock feed, the necessary fertilizer is nitrogen-containing fertilizer, and some farms even provide their cows and goats with urea supplements.
The fluctuation of natural gas prices puts the security of nitrogen fertilizer supply at stake. There was even news yesterday that one fertilizer plant in Indonesia has stopped producing fertilizer due to difficulties in finding natural gas supply.
This problem can be solved by investing in large-capacity natural gas storage to buy a lot of natural gas when the price is low. However, the most effective solution is to conduct research to create nitrogen-containing fertilizers that do not come from natural gas. At least if there is diversification, natural gas prices will also go down.
Hunger and Food Crisis
Food crisis is a problem that occurs and results in difficulty in accessing food at affordable prices. This can happen due to a lack of fertilizer supply, crop failure, and poor post-harvest management.
It can also be caused by poor land management. Land that is continuously forced to produce very large agricultural products will result in a reduction of soil nutrients and fertility. In the long run, this can even make the land no longer usable for agriculture.
Fertilizer crises and crop failures can be solved by one thing, which is having more fertilizer stocks. For example, when there is a crop failure, farmers will need fertilizer again to plant new crops. Therefore, the security of fertilizer supply must be highly considered.
World has a population of more than billions. Each of the billions of people depends on agricultural products for their survival, such as rice for food, sugar, coffee, tea, corn for livestock feed, meat, and onions. All of these depend on the availability of affordable fertilizer.
Food crisis is not only about the shortage of food supply. It can also be caused by a lot of food stocks, but the prices are high. If the cost of food production becomes expensive, farmers have no other choice.
Energy Vs Fertilizer
Both fuel and fertilizer are two important things to be considered, as they have a significant impact on the economy.
However, for a food-producing country, fertilizer must receive the same attention as fuel. It is different if Indonesia is a country that imports its food supply, such as the United Arab Emirates, then there is no need to worry about fertilizer.
But even countries like the United Arab Emirates, located in the desert, are beginning to think about food supply security. Recently, there has been investment in modern agriculture that applies indoor and vertical farming.
Many people are always concerned about the energy sector, but pay less attention to fertilizer. For example, investment and innovation for the transition to eco-friendly transportation have received funding of up to hundreds of billions of US dollars, and even Tesla has once had a market capitalization of one trillion US dollars.
This is different from fertilizer. There is only one startup that has made an innovation to produce nitrogen-containing fertilizer that is different from conventional fertilizer. This innovation is by creating it from water that is first processed into hydrogen. The more resources available to produce fertilizer, the more affordable fertilizer prices are expected in the future.
