Fertilizer International 520 May-Jun 2024
31 May 2024
Polyhalite: a future facing fertilizer for a changing world
CROP NUTRITION
Polyhalite: a future facing fertilizer for a changing world
Fertilizers will always be fundamental to food production, but they will also have to be low emissions, environmentally friendly and support healthy soils. In this article, Dr Alexander Schmitt, Chief Marketing Officer, Anglo American Crop Nutrients, explains how polyhalite meets all three of these criteria – while also helping to increase the quantity and quality of food a farmer can produce.
Introduction
Agriculture is facing a significant challenge: how to grow more food to feed more people, while combatting climate change, and healing the world’s largely damaged soils. The agricultural practices of the past are not sustainable solutions for the future.
This is why Anglo American is investing in the Woodsmith Project, which has the potential to redefine perceptions of mining in the 21st century, thanks to its minimal surface imprint and low environmental impact design.
Woodsmith will be nearly invisible from the surface with all ore mined and conveyed underground to the port via a 37 kilometre tunnel, the longest tunnel on mainland UK. What will be the deepest mine in Europe – at 1,600 metres – will blend into the landscape, while protecting and enhancing the surrounding biodiversity, and helping support and develop a thriving local community.
The changing face of farming
In order to fully understand the size of the market for polyhalite – and our cornerstone granular product POLY4 – it is important to understand the changes facing agriculture, the nature of the mineral, and the commitment, planning and experience that Anglo American is applying to the development of our Crop Nutrients business.
The first reason that we have confidence in polyhalite is that farming is changing: Sustainable farming practices are increasing; food companies are adopting ambitious environmental performance targets; emissions and nutrient pollution restrictions are tightening; and governments are incentivising more sustainable practices. Soil health is being discussed in Brussels, Washington, Beijing and beyond – evidence that the ground is shifting for agriculture and a sign that the way fertilizers were used in the past will not be the same in the future.
By one estimate, the world has lost a third of its arable land due to erosion or pollution in the past 40 years, in part due to fertilizer misuse. Fertilizers will always be fundamental to food production, but they will also have to be low emissions, environmentally friendly and support healthy soils.
Unlike many legacy products, polyhalite meets all three of these criteria while also helping to increase the quantity and quality of food a farmer can produce.
Improving farming practices in this way will be crucial if we are to succeed in meeting an expected 50 percent increase in demand for food by 2050 without harming the planet.
Polyhalite is not potash
This means that new solutions and products must be brought to market – we cannot keep relying on the very tools that have helped to cause the problem. One of the common misconceptions encountered around polyhalite is that it must be akin to potash. This is far from true. The nutrient with the highest content in polyhalite is sulphur, followed by calcium, potassium and magnesium.
Historically, sulphur has been undersupplied and underappreciated compared to nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (see page 20), but it is now recognised as an essential component of the biological processes involved in crop growth, such as the metabolism of nitrogen (increasing nutrient efficiency) and protein production. Previously deposited on soils from the atmosphere due to acid rain, successful air pollution controls have had the unintended effect of reducing farmers’ access to this vital nutrient.
However, the key difference between polyhalite, versus potash and other legacy mass market mineral fertilizers, is its naturally-occurring multi-nutrient make up. By providing multiple nutrients in one efficient natural product at a global scale, POLY4 will enable more farmers to supply their crops with a more balanced and nutritious diet. This leads to stronger, healthier and more productive crops, thus delivering tangible positive impacts for farmers.
Doing our research
The final reason we remain confident in polyhalite is the huge amount of research, trials, customer engagement and commercial development we have been undertaking. We have conducted over 1,900 commercial demonstrations in over 40 countries across over 90 crops, expanded the marketing team significantly, and built on the existing five major distribution partner contracts with numerous market development agreements, and devised a comprehensive downstream engagement strategy to prepare the agricultural world for polyhalite.
To date, we have engaged with over 350 distributors, retailers, co-operatives, blenders and manufacturers, and conducted over 500 engagements with universities, NGOs, global research institutions, media, and membership associations.
Preparing the market
In the three and a half years in my role, I have never met an agronomist who is not excited by polyhalite, nor a farmer who is not intrigued by its potential. There is no denying we have a lot of work ahead of us in convincing farmers to use polyhalite. But we are already well underway and our confidence in our ability to carve out a market for the first new globally scalable mineral fertilizer in 75 years has only increased.
As a natural, low-carbon product, POLY4 will help enable a transition to the soil-nourishing and environmentally-friendly fertilizer practices that are required at scale.
Farming is changing and farmers need new solutions; with POLY4, Anglo American is well positioned to help address that need.
ORGANIC CERTIFICATION
Anglo American’s multi-nutrient polyhalite fertilizer POLY4 is now organically certified in more than 30 regions globally. The most recent certification from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), announced in April, is another important step in the development of a global premium market for polyhalite, according to the company.
POLY4 has already been recognised by eight organic certification bodies around the world. These include the international Ecocert scheme, as well as similar schemes in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Netherlands and other parts of Europe.
POLY4 is suitable for both traditional and organic farming systems. Globally, Anglo American has completed almost 1,900 commercial field trials with the product in 43 countries across 90 crops.
Tom McCulley, CEO of Anglo American Crop Nutrients, said: “Farming is changing for the better. The agricultural practices of the past need to evolve urgently towards sustainable solutions for the future. Polyhalite ticks a lot of boxes for the future of food production, being well suited to more balanced crop nutrition solutions that can help to improve yields while supporting soil health and reducing harm to the environment. California is a state that is supporting this critical transition by expanding climate smart agriculture through regenerative farming.
“The organic certification in California is particularly important given the state is the largest producer and consumer of organic products in the USA and grows over a third of the country’s vegetables and nearly three-quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts. Our POLY4 product is particularly well suited to such high value crops, enhancing both yield and quality, so representing significant additional value to farmers.”
