Sunday, April 3, 2016

OZY: Is This The End of Cheap Food?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Enter your local supermarket and it’s hard to miss the mile-long piles of fresh produce. And when those heads of lettuce or cauliflower are in season, the prices can be low enough that feeding yourself doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. But that may not last much longer.

The world population continues to grow, after all, particularly in developing countries, where there’s been an increased appetite for protein. That’s put strain on the world’s grasslands, where livestock is raised for meat and milk production — and it’s worried scientists. A study recently published in the journal Nature Communications indicated that farmers would need to double their overall use of phosphorus in order to keep grasslands healthy enough to feed all that cattle. Such land hasn’t typically been fertilized directly by farmers, who do tend to add the mineral to arable land, but, with little likely relief on the horizon, that may need to change. Read more here.

Photo by Chad Montano on Unsplash

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