Artificial Fertilisers

Nature cannot be run like a business. It rebels if we try and crank up production in the expectation of bigger returns.

Show disrespect for nature's laws and watch out – which is what is happening to the world now. We'd surely better watch out because there are ominous signs that nature is showing us it is in control.

One of the biggest problems is artificial fertilisers and the runoffs that leach into waterways and finally out into the seas. With unsustainable farming practices pouring fertilisers willy nilly onto vast areas of farmland, we are now endangering the oceans and its inhabitants.

Estimates show that the world's fish stocks will collapse by 2050, partly through overfishing, and partly through the increasing number of dead zones in the ocean where pollution, including fertiliser run-offs, has depleted oxygen.

Ultimately the predicted food shortages caused by over population, global warming, and rising pollution levels, can only be helped by sustainable growing practices. In the long run organic methods will be out savior.

Nature is already showing the symptoms of our disrespect and we will be punished for our greed in expecting too much too quickly, with no thought of the future.

As the first rays of the morning beamed out 2008, there were 6,641,114,623 people in the world. Estimates for 2050 are for a population of 9.4 billion.

Whether this is beyond the capacity of our planet to feed them all, nature will show us and more importantly, nature will guide the human race with its magnificent intelligence and resourcefulness, to survive in the best way possible.

But why suffer first? Why not see the obvious answers and drastically reduce the artificial fertiliser runoffs, the bad farming practices, the use of oil and the pollution to send food around the world to satisfy the whims and wishes of our shallow taste buds.

We all can do our bit with our home and community gardens. Producing locally, consuming locally, and using nature's fertilisers in the form of compost, returning food scraps to the soil, natural mineral rocks, animal remains and manures, and in fact anything that moves or grows, will sustain us and infinite generations to come – at least until the next ice-age, flood, big bang or cosmic collision!

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