Around half of the world would not be alive today without the invention of synthetic fertilisers. Several scientists have separately estimated how many people the world could support without these added nutrients, and all converge on a similar figure: around half as many.10 –12 In the tropics, the contribution of fertilisers might be even higher. That is why conversations about whether the world should go organic or not get so messy. The reality is that the world cannot go organic. Too many of us rely on fertilisers to survive. As we’ll see later, many countries can reduce the amount of
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