But at what cost of human toil! This great nitrogen barrier to higher crop yields was nudged only during the 19th century with the mining and export of Chilean nitrates, the first inorganic nitrogenous fertilizer. The barrier was then broken decisively with the invention of ammonia synthesis by Fritz Haber in 1909 and with its rapid commercialization (ammonia was first shipped in 1913), but subsequent production grew slowly and the widespread application of nitrogenous fertilizers had to wait until after the Second World War.[20]
