By Dr Alexander Schmitt (Former Crop Nutrients Chief Marketing Officer)
Agriculture is facing a significant challenge: how to grow more food to feed more people, whilst 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 37km tunnel, the longest tunnel on mainland UK. What will be the deepest mine in Europe at -1,600m will blend into the landscape, while protecting and enhancing the surrounding biodiversity, and helping support and develop a thriving local community.
Farming is changing
In order to fully understand the size of 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 fertilisers 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 fertiliser misuse. Fertilisers 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 like this is crucial if we are to succeed in meeting an expected 50% increase in demand for food by 2050 without harming the planet.
Not your typical 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 (a majority potassium mineral fertiliser); far from it. In most cases potash is derived from a different evaporite mineral called sylvite, whereas 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, 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, potash and other legacy mass market mineral fertilisers, is its naturally multinutrient 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 impact for farmers.
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 1,800 commercial demonstrations in over 40 countries across over 80 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 fertiliser 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 fertiliser 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.
* This article first appeared in Mining Journal.