28° SUNNY, Shoals may be home to fertilizer research
Last Modified: Saturday, August 16, 2008 at 10:50 p.m.
Muscle Shoals - Amit Roy says he is confident the solution for curbing soaring food prices around the world can be found in the Shoals.
Roy, president and chief executive officer of Muscle Shoals-based IFDC, International Center For Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development, wants the Shoals to become the core of research into finding affordable, environmentally friendly fertilizers. As the price of conventional fertilizers has risen in recent years, so have food costs.
"In some places, fertilizer prices have gone up so much that it's viewed almost like gold," Roy said.
"In the United States, we used to spend about 10 percent of our income on food. We're now spending about 12 percent. In some developing countries, the people are now spending 70 percent of their income on food."
Charles Burmester, an agronomist for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, said farmers frequently complain about the price of fertilizer and ask for tips on how they can spend less for the product.
He said the price of some fertilizers has tripled during the past two years. Burmester said the prices of fertilizers made from natural gas have risen the most dramatically.
IFDC works to help farmers in developing countries increase crop production and farm income. Roy wants to expand that mission to share its developments with farmers in the United States.
By developing new fertilizers that are better utilized by crops, the cost of growing food around the world would fall, he said. If the cost of production declined, so would food costs.
Roy said much of the nitrogen component in today's fertilizers evaporates or washes away before it can be utilized by the crop.
IFDC would like to develop fertilizers that would provide nutrients to the plants as they are needed and retain the remainder in the soil.
Reducing the amount of wasted nutrients would help farmers hold down their production costs and protect the environment, Roy said.
"That's great news," Burmester said. "If they can come up with anything, that's going to help hold down the cost of fertilizer."
Roy said a new generation of fertilizers could be developed in as little as five years.
The agency is considering leasing laboratory space from the Tennessee Valley Authority for the project. TVA's chemical engineering building, which is next door to IFDC headquarters, is vacant.
Roy estimates it would cost about $5 million to purchase equipment and refurbish the laboratories. It would then cost about $15 million to $20 million per year for five to six years to pay for the research.
"It's a miniscule amount compared to the benefits that could result from the research," Roy said.
John Shields, interim director of IFDC's research and marketing development division, said the return on an investment into fertilizer development is high.
Shields, former official at TVA's International Fertilizer Development Center, said the $41 million the federal utility spent on fertilizer research from the 1930s and early 1980s returned $57 billion to U.S. agriculture. He said TVA's research also helped farmers in nations around the world improve their productivity.
Burmester said much of the fertilizer technology being used worldwide today came from TVA research in Muscle Shoals.
Shields said there have been no major innovations in fertilizer for farm crops since TVA ended its research in the early 1990s.
"There has been very little interest in fertilizer research by the private sector other than improving the profitability of an existing product," he said.
Shields said TVA was the last agency to conduct fertilizer research that shared its findings with all manufacturers for the benefit of farmers around the world.
Roy said many of the former TVA scientists, engineers and chemists still live in the Shoals and could be recruited to help with a new research project.
With the fertilizer expertise in the Shoals and the now empty TVA labs being available, Roy said Muscle Shoals is the logical choice to be the headquarters of new fertilizer development for the world. He said the jobs the center would provide and money it would spend in the Shoals would boost the local economy.
IFDC operates a research facility in Muscle Shoals that includes the world's largest pilot plant for manufacturing new fertilizer formulas on a small scale.
Roy said once new formulas were perfected in the pilot plant, they could be shared with manufacturers around the world who would manufacture them on a commercial scale.
With fertilizer and food prices projected to continue rising, Roy said now is the time to begin searching for new fertilizers.
IFDC will seek money from governments around the world, including the United States, and from private organizations to pay for the research.
Laura Henderson, press secretary for U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said he is interested in learning more about IFDC's plans.
"Although we have not seen this specific proposal from the IFDC, the senator continues to support fertilizer-related research and development being conducted by the IFDC," she said.
Todd Isbell, a fifth-generation farmer from Muscle Shoals, said a new generation of fertilizer would be welcomed by farmers. His family has started using poultry litter on some of its fields in recent years in an effort to reduce spending on fertilizers.
"We're using high-tech seeds and equipment but are still growing crops with the same fertilizer that was used by farmers hundreds of years ago," he said.
"We need a new generation of fertilizers that matches the other modern technology we use on our farms."
Jeff Helms, spokesman for the Alabama Farmers Federation in Montgomery, said the organization also wants to learn more about IFDC's proposal.
"We are interested in anything that helps our farmers improve their efficiency and profitability," he said.
Roy said IFDC officials plan to meet with government officials and leaders of agricultural aid organizations to seek support for its plan to restore the Shoals as world leader in fertilizer development.
Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or dennis.sherer@TimesDaily.com.
Next Article in Local News
-
Study: Tornadoes deadlier during night
Knowing that severe weather threatens the area during overnight hours puts Mike Melton on edge.
As the director of the Colbert County Emergency Management Agency, he and others in his department will be the first to respond to reports of...
Events Calendar More Events Submit Event
- Farmers could face tax for belching cattle
- Arthur seeks DNA evidence in murder case
- City raises speed limit on Hatch Boulevard
- Study: Tornadoes deadlier during night
- Code change would allow wine to be purchased by bottle, glass
- Mum's the word on Tuberville talks
- Ethics panel to get Chapman case
- It's about revenge for Lions
- Reports indicate Tuberville will return in 2009
- One man shares his story of hope, acceptance on World AIDS Day
- Raw Video: Rice Plays Piano for Queen 3 hrs ago
- India Demands Pakistan Hand Over Terrorists 3 hrs ago
- AP Top Stories 3 hrs ago
- Raw Video: Deadly Train Bombing in India 3 hrs ago
- Asian Markets Slip on Word of U.S. Recession 3 hrs ago
- Thai Court Dissolves Govt. to Protesters Delight 3 hrs ago
- In Wake of Attacks, India-Pakistan Tensions Grow 5 hrs ago
- A Scare Forever Etched 5 hrs ago
- Arrogant, Abusive and Disruptive — and a Doctor 5 hrs ago
- Officials Vow to Act Amid Forecasts of Long Recession 5 hrs ago
Comments
Post a comment | View all comments on this topic.
August 17, 2008 4:02:56 pm
RE: http://www.timesdaily.com/apps.../808170336/1011/NEWS
TVA Report . . .
How many times does it have to go around to come around for the TVA to stop and read the TVA Act?
In a remarkably ironic move, Muscle Shoals-based IFDC, International Center For Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development, wants the Shoals to become the core of research . . .
For rest of article see http://norsworthyopinion.com
Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
August 17, 2008 5:08:37 pm
Ernest,
They may as well use the buildings. It's a ghost town there right now. You have been wanting TVA to fold, and it has except for power production. I guess you got your wish.
August 17, 2008 5:15:55 pm
NORSTWOHY, I'm surprised you haven't printed the article about TVA raising power rates in October 10-20%, and making yourself a spectacle over that? Whats wrong, you can't try to make a big fuss about it? Or is it that your power company is expected to raise your rates more?
August 17, 2008 5:30:00 pm
He has only been pointing out the corruption that will be the end of TVA as you know it.
August 18, 2008 5:44:12 am
So funny....... jealous much?.......
August 18, 2008 7:46:08 am
TVA has simply moved closer and closer in recent years toward being no more than another electrical utility. Sure, they retain a navigation function, but the locks on the Tenessee River system are controlled by the Corps of Engineers. TVA still promotes economic development, but so do other utilities, and for the same reason--to sell more power and to justify the development of more generating capacity (and the resurrection of mothballed nuclear plants, in the case of TVA). TVA's natural resources programs are about down to nothing. The only recent bright light from TVA was the decision of its new board of directors to quit peddling waterfront land for commercial development. Before that, the former 3-person board was running wild, selling off big tracts to private real estate developers for luxury gated comunities and concurrently chopping away at public access to reservoir shorelines and associated low-impact recreational lands. I was skeptical about the new 9-peraon board, but they have shown some wisdom that was sorely lacking in the sell-out triumvirate they replaced!
August 18, 2008 9:02:02 am
I am no Luddite, but I am skeptical about how far advances in fertilizer technology really can go to improve world production of food crops. Recent large increases in the price of fertilizers have resulted from increases in the costs of energy and transportation, which are unlikely to diminish any time soon.
In the article, an IFDC spokesman asserts that "Reducing the amount of wasted nutrients would help farmers hold down their production costs and protect the environment." True, but there already is technology available to deal with that issue. Farmers should use "slow-release" fertilizer formulas. When I buy lawn fertilizer, I get formulations with slow-release nitrogen. Nitrogen is the most expensive component in "complete" (nitrogen/phosphorus/potassium) fertilizers. Using a slow-release formulation puts more of this nutrient into crop production
Farmer Todd Isbell's assertion ("We're using high-tech seeds and equipment but are still growing crops with the same fertilizer that was used by farmers hundreds of years ago.") is simply bogus. The fertilizer formulations developed by TVA between the 1930s and 1990s revolutionized the use of fertilizers. If Isbell has not found and used these fertilizers, then he is living alone in the Dark Ages of agriculture.
In applied research, the very last increments of improvement are the most costly. Squeezing a bit more productivity out of fertilizers and finding measures to make small cost reductions might be desirable to some, but they will likely come at a very high developmental cost and they will not save the small, struggling third world farmer. Do not look for some kind of revolution in fertilizer technology from IFDC or anyone else. It is likely that saving third world agriculture and making agriculture everywhere more efficient and profitable would be better achieved by stronger promotion of sustainable agriculture--better control of erosion, wider employment of drip irrigation, and genetic improvement of crops to make them more drought and disease resistant and to improve the efficiency with which they USE the nutrients from fertilizers.
August 18, 2008 12:13:18 pm
BeternU, you have made some thoughtful comments. I wouldn't, however, think that being a Luddite (as apparently is Al Gore) is comparable to skepticism.
Having a questioning mind leads to progress, etc. As to the possibility of improving the "magic" of fertilizer on crops, there probably are diminishing returns. But nobody knows when, or even if, that major breakthrough may come.
I suspect that a combination of processes, irrigation, and insect control will synergistically re-energize agriculture. I live in one of the world's most productive agricultural areas but it is about to revert to the desert it once was.
Water; not enough of it, and the enviros want to save a small trash fish, smelt, to the detriment of of a huge economic resource. They say some of the fish are destroyed when going through water pumps. And a liberal court backed them up.
Analogous is their opposition to drilling for oil. Always, you see, they have no answer to the havoc they have raised; ANWR must continue to be a "pristine" wasteland preserve. Where is the wildlife in that vast northern plain?
And, oh yes, the unemployment rate here is 10 percent; "proficiency in English" year after year hovers around 40 percent. See www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/ and compare your own educational progress in Alabama. It may surprise you.
The future lies where there is water for life, for crops and animals.
Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
http://norsworthyopinion.com
Post a comment | View all comments