Manitoba Co-operator

Opinion: Sleepwalking into a phosphorus crisis

Mined phosphorus is a key to the food system but it’s in limited supply

Without phosphorus, food cannot be produced. Put simply, if there is no phosphorus, there is no life. Most phosphorus comes from non-renewable phosphate rock and it cannot be synthesized artificially. Some 85 per cent of the world’s remaining high-grade phosphate rock is concentrated in just five countries: Morocco, China, Egypt, Algeria and South Africa. Seventy