People need food. Food needs fertilizer. One of the world's most important fertilizers is in short supply. That fertilizer is potash. One of the first things people change as they emerge from poverty is their diet. They move toward more meat and a greater variety of fruits and vegetables. So while we may wonder about how many cars or toasters the brave new world's top consumers will want, we know for sure they'll eat more food.
But the web of food production shivers and shakes in the short term in response to economic pressures. Farmers cut back - like everybody else - in 2008 and 2009. One of the things they cut back on was fertilizer. They used 30-40% less potash than usual, for instance. Potash, a key fertilizer ingredient, saw six consecutive quarters of falling volumes.
Farmers ran down their inventories. All that deferred buying pushed North American potash inventories below their five-year averages - first time that's happened since November 2008. In some cases, farmers didn't apply potash at all. Potash stays in the soil for up to two years, so you can skip applications. But you can do that for only so long. (more)
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