Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
impediment to prevent Britain ruralizing its economy to a radical extent, should it wish to
do so.
Günther calculates that by ruralizing the economy, and recreating direct local food links
between farmers and consumers, payments to farmers could be increased six-fold from the
current average in Sweden of 3.7 per cent of the shop price, to 22 per cent (allowing for
a 30 per cent increase in production costs). UK farmers who have shifted from producing
for corporate distributors to direct sales, for example from farm shops, can testify that in-
creases of this order are normal. 'A rise in farmer income of that magnitude' says Günther,
'can be expected to enforce even larger changes in agricultural practice.'
On Getting Matter in the Right Place
While Günther recognizes the need to improve accessibility to food, energy and water,
he focusses especially on waste disposal and the need to return nutrients back to the soil
efficiently. Günther's particular concern is phosphorus, which (in contrast to nitrogen and
carbon) is not a volatile element present in the atmosphere, but has to be mined:
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Whereas other non-volatile nutrients [eg silicon] are more abundant in the earth's
crust than in biological systems, phosphorus is both essential in biological systems,
and is needed in much higher concentration than its existence in the crust. Conse-
quently, phosphorus needs to be concentrated from outside the organism, and a lack
of availability is immediately reflected in its vigour.
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I have already explained, in Chapter 8, how sustainable agriculture is dependent upon
(a) returning phosphorus back to the land from which it came and (b) upon a small but es-
sential input of phosphorus from outlying land or other sources to make up for erosion and
leaching. For the last 150 years much of the phosphorus has not been returned to the land
in the correct proportions and the shortfall has been made up by mining rocks rich in phos-
phorus, which are found in relatively few parts of the world. As with many non-renewable
resources, the issue is not that phosphorus supplies are about to run out, but that there are
diminishing returns from continued exploitation. John Driver, an industry consultant, ob-
serves, 'what is patently clear to anyone who has worked in the phosphate industry for a
number of years is that the quality of phosphate rock is declining inexorably'.
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Moreover, the politics of phosphorus mining have always been fraught with confiict.
Britain exhausted its own supplies at the end of the 19th century, so the British Phosphate
Commission set about strip mining the tiny Pacific island of Nauru. The island eventually
gained control of its resources after World War II, but by the year 2000 these were ex-
hausted, leaving Nauru's population impoverished, and its ecology devastated. The Nauru
Phosphates Royalties Development Group, on the other hand, has invested in five luxury
