Fortunately, there are other means of fertilising. Green manures - generally annual legumes - are a good option. The difficulty is that this, and other organic approaches to fertilising and structuring soil, require a proportion of land to be allowed to lie fallow for a while.
In other words, fertilising the soil with fossil fuel derived products is just.. more profitable.
The solution is probably carbon pricing of some kind for fertilisers: the cost of organic farming needs to be roughly the same. Agricultural subsidies are already enormous, so some of them could be directed to food prices directly, to ease the transition for consumers.
In other words, fertilising the soil with fossil fuel derived products is just.. more profitable.
The solution is probably carbon pricing of some kind for fertilisers: the cost of organic farming needs to be roughly the same. Agricultural subsidies are already enormous, so some of them could be directed to food prices directly, to ease the transition for consumers.