Chemical Pesticides and Fertilizer

Application of Second Industrial Revolution to Agriculture.
- Petroleum, electricity, and chemistry.
Motorization: internal combustion and electricity to power tractors.
Mechanization: increased use of machines.
Chemicalization: synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
Advances in plant and animal breeding to leverage new technologies.
Global scale of market integration: vertical and horizontal division of labor.
Enabled well-capitalized farms to specialize.
Developed in the US first, spreading rapidly after WWII.
Increased farm labor productivity by >100 times.
- 10x cultivated area per worker and yields.
- Resulted in fewer and larger farms.

Bound by soil fertility.
Limited industrial development due to low and uncertain agricultural surplus.
Nitrogen cycle:
- Lightning: several kgs/ha/yr.
- Bacteria: 20-30 kgs/ha/yr.
- Symbiotic microorganisms (e.g., legumes): >100 kgs/ha/yr.

Plant growth is limited by the least adequate element or compound (e.g., N, P, K).

Fritz Haber (1868-1934) developed a technique for fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere in the form of ammonia by catalysis at high temperature and pressure in 1909.
Post 1947: Munitions plants were converted to chemical fertilizer production.
Global N fertilizer production and applications increased.

More than half the world’s agricultural population use pesticides.
Pesticide imports have nearly tripled since 2000, mostly in the developing world.
Pesticide use is growing twice as fast as food production.

High risk for pesticide applicators, farmers, farmworkers and communities near farms.
Consumers face exposure through food and water residues.
Farmers and pesticide applicators have higher rates of prostate cancer.
Women who work with pesticides suffer more often from ovarian cancer.
Cropduster pilots and farm women have higher rates of skin cancer.