The Price
of Plenty

Chemical fertilizers feed the world – at increasingly steep costs to people and the planet.

Few inventions have changed the world like synthetic fertilizer. Without it, the planet’s population would be roughly half what it is today. Scientists learned to mine nutrients from the ground and pull chemicals from the air to boost food production and make farming more efficient.

But fertilizer production and use also threaten human and environmental health. The energy-intensive industry emits more heat-trapping gases than global aviation while leaving an unfair industrial burden on low-income communities. Meanwhile, less than half of fertilizer spread on fields is taken up by plants. The rest pollutes air and water, contributing to climate change, toxic algae blooms and oxygen-depleted water where life is snuffed out.

Funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative, The Price of Plenty teamed up student journalists from the University of Florida and the University of Missouri to report on the fertilizer industry from the ground up: From Florida’s “Bone Valley,” where 8-million-pound earth movers strip-mine phosphate, to agrichemical plants along the Mississippi River, to farm fields and legislative hallways, to the communities stuck next door to the industry, and to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, where it threatens one of the most productive fisheries in the world.

Student journalists found that the industry wields outsized political power; that farmers have little incentive to use less; and that nutrient pollution persists despite exhaustive science linking fertilizer to toxic algae and other problems. They also found that while government and industry research funding pours into fertilizer application and future markets such as hydrogen power and rare earth elements, there is a dearth of research on the human health risks associated with fertilizer production – from Florida’s reclaimed phosphate lands to Louisiana’s chemical plants.

They also found promising signs of action and change. Fenceline communities next door to the industry are becoming increasingly organized in pursuit of environmental justice. An upswing in regenerative farming practices is helping to restore polluted waterways and fight climate change.

“It takes time to keep making changes and improvements in agriculture,” said Rob Myers, director of the Center for Regenerative Agriculture at the University of Missouri, which has received $35 million in federal grants in the past year to improve farm sustainability. “But I think we're headed in the right direction with these practices.”