...demand for phosphate not going away anytime soonTHE...

...demand for phosphate not going away anytime soon

THE exponential growth in global food production has not only sent the price of fertilisers skyrocketing, but could lead to a world shortage of phosphate within decades.

Beyond a temporary market spike driven by richer developing countries and increased supply of biofuels, researchers are warning that the world could face dwindling supplies of phosphate by 2040 unless steps are taken to use it more efficiently and recover it from human waste.

But unlike oil, which can be managed by substituting other sources of energy, there is no substitute for the critical role of phosphate in plant development and production.

Mineral phosphorous fertilisers come from mined phosphate rock found in places such as Christmas Island, Nauru and Morocco, which is the world's biggest exporter of the resource.

"Quite simply, without phosphorus we cannot produce food," says Dana Cordell of the Institute of Sustainable Futures, based in Sydney.

Growth in demand for food in China and India, coupled with increased switching of food crops to biofuels in the US, have increased the demand for fertilisers, raising the world price fourfold in the past year.

Despite the development of phosphate mining at Mount Isa to replace declining supplies from Nauru and Christmas Island, Australia still imports about 75 per cent of its fertiliser.

Ms Cordell is researching the scale of the looming shortage and methods to improve the efficiency of phosphate use.

"There is no global organisation looking at global trends in phosphorus and how we're going to ensure we'll have phosphorus production into the future," she said.

"It's just left to the market, which is looking at a different timeline to what we need."