Here is the full transcript of entrepreneur Clark T. Bell’s talk titled “Improving Our Food Starts With Improving Our Fertilizer” at TEDxSaltLakeCity 2024 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Importance of Fertilizer
There are three things we need to survive: oxygen, food, and water. All three depend on something you may have never have thought about: fertilizer. Fertilizer is a critical factor in how much food we grow for humans and animals. It provides plants with essential nutrients such as phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen.
Thanks to these ingredients, plants grow bigger and faster, and more oxygen is generated as a wonderful benefit. Between 1965 to 2020, worldwide grain production has more than doubled per acre. We can grow more than twice as much food on a single acre than we could 40 years ago. Around half of the world’s population is reliant on synthetic fertilizer for food production.
Personal Experience with Fertilizer
I’ve known about fertilizer since I was nine years old, working on my family’s large sod farm. I vividly remember a moment when I was working in the field and my grandma Betty called me over, “Clarkie,” and only my grandma Betty is allowed to call me Clarkie. “Let me teach you something.”
She told me how compost came from manure and was something we could use to improve our soils. She had me pick up the compost with my bare hands and even hold it up to my nose. Then she took me to a bag of synthetic fertilizer. She told me, unlike compost, I would have to wear gloves to get the material out of the bag, and if synthetic fertilizer was used incorrectly, it could damage the crops on our farm.
The Pros and Cons of Fertilizer
That lesson from my grandma Betty forever shaped my opinion about fertilizer and how we farm.
For the past 20 years, I’ve worked in sod production, sold organic fertilizer, and introduced nanotechnology to agriculture. However, the helpful elements that promote plant growth from fertilizer can create enormous problems when overused.
Using too much fertilizer pollutes our waterways, and farmers lose profit from their crops. We see this at Utah Lake, where runoff containing excess chemicals from lawns and farms encourages algae to grow abundantly. Too much algae releases a dangerous toxin called harmful algae bloom. For over a decade, we’ve not been able to boat on the lake for more than a few hours due to harmful algae bloom.
If humans and animals are exposed too long to this toxic water, people and pets may get sick or even die. We’ve seen runoff issues in other parts of North America. In 2014, leaders in Toledo, Ohio warned residents that their drinking water contained harmful algae bloom from over fertilizing in Lake Erie. You may have heard of the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Dilemma of Fertilizer
Here runoff enters the ocean, depleting the water of oxygen, killing fish and other sea life. Is fertilizer feeding or killing our world? How we use fertilizer has an outsized effect on food production and protecting our water resources. The experts are projecting that our global population will reach 9.7 billion people by 2050.
We must grow more food to keep our population alive and thriving. Increased corn production has been one way that humans have addressed global hunger. The worldwide demand of corn has skyrocketed, and so has the need for fertilizer to grow it. Corn is in many of the foods that we love.
Corn on the cob, popcorn, soda pop, and many gas station snacks we devour on long summer road trips. Corn contains dense calories that can be preserved over long periods of time. Nobel Prize winning scientist Norman Borlaug has made corn a lifesaver in some of the poorest countries in the world. At the same time, we must protect our oceans and water resources for the health of every living thing on earth.
So how can we use the power of fertilizer without harming the earth? These innovative technologies are key: nanotechnology, biostimulants, and artificial intelligence. Nanotechnology offers a more precise, efficient, and eco-friendly approach to feeding our crops. Nanoparticles are inexpensive and abundant since they are derived from natural materials like sand and clay.
Nanoparticles are tiny, over 1,000 times smaller than a grain of sand. Pictured is an animated photo of what a fertilizer molecule looks like once filled with nanoparticles. The combination of fertilizer mixed with nanoparticles is simply remarkable. Usually fertilizer is absorbed at a rate of 60%, but by adding nanoparticles, up to 90% can be absorbed. This minimizes waste and maximizes plant health.
Best of all, nanoparticles don’t create harmful side effects in our soil. Another natural solution to our fertilizer dilemma is biostimulants, such as seaweed, organic acids, and microbes. Biostimulants naturally enhance soils and increase plant resilience.
Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture
Over the past 20 years, the biostimulant market has grown to be a $10 billion industry. Most exciting is how we can train machines and artificial intelligence to deliver nutrients to our crops. Artificial intelligence can learn to make smart decisions about how, where, and when we deploy fertilizer.
Picture this: a farmer on a tractor pulling a tank of liquid plant food that will be sprayed on the corn crop. As the tractor drives down each row, it sprays precisely the exact amount of nutrients due to the detection from the camera. So instead of applying a nutrient such as zinc to an entire acre of corn, with smart precision agriculture, we can apply fertilizer exactly where the plants need them.
Drone technology could do something similar. Drones scan crops for trouble spots, then they deploy the correct amount of fertilizer or other nutrients precisely to the plants that need them. I have met with farmers in Europe, South America, Asia, and all over North America. Even though these growers grow different crops in different regions, they all have one thing in common.
They are all great stewards of our environment and want to take great care of the land. Drone technology, bio-stimulants, and artificial intelligence offer ways to precisely feed our crops, and they can revolutionize the way we feed our world. We can all be smarter about how we fertilize our lawns at our home and garden.
Here are three things we can all do. First, at your home garden, only apply fertilizer when your plants need them. For example, with tomato plants, only apply fertilizer at planting and then right before harvest. Second, don’t overwater your lawns and garden. This reduces waste into our waterways. Third, use sustainable landscaping techniques. This might include planting less lawn, such as not planting grass in your parking strip. I know that sounds funny coming from a sod farmer.
Looking Towards the Future
We can all do our part. Individuals, farmers, and industry can be more responsible with how we use fertilizer. And as we go to 2050, with our global population about to reach 9.7 billion people, we can more than survive. We can thrive.