Fertilizers market
Worldwide demand for fertilizers (at the product level) is projected to increase nearly three percent per year to 380 million metric tons in 2014. These gains will reflect an upswing from sluggish growth registered during the 2004 to 2009 period, as pricing moderates from the historical highs posted during 2008 and 2009. A growing global population, increased consumption of high-protein products that require fertilizer-intensive grains, greater crop requirements for biofuel production, and shrinking arable land will require farmers to improve crop yields, providing opportunities for fertilizers. Rising incomes and the development of a middle class in industrializing nations will also create demand for fertilizers as golf industries expand and more individuals have the monetary resources to purchase products designed to enhance lawns and gardens. A more balanced nutrient approach to improving soil fertility will provide opportunities for multi-nutrient and organic fertilizer products.
Meat and bone meal (MBM) has been widely used as a valuable protein and mineral source in diets of production animals. Development of animal transmissive spongiform encephalopathies (TSE), like bovine scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has been linked to feeding ruminants with MBM contaminated with transmissive agents. Therefore the use of MBM for ruminants was banned in the European Union in 1994, and the use of MBM for all production animals was banned in 2000 in the European Union and most other European countries. This situation has forced the meat production industry to look for alternative use of MBM.
Chemical analyses of MBM indicate that the material contains substantial amounts of organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus and calcium. MBM contains appreciable amounts of total nitrogen (cca 8%), phosphorus (cca 5%) and calcium (cca 10%). It may therefore be a useful fertilizer for various crops. The material should therefore be interesting as a fertilizer.
The effectiveness of MBM as a nitrogen fertilizer to wheat has been evaluated by scientists. They found better use of nitrogen from MBM than from pig slurry, and the N content of the fertilizer was as effective as urea N. Meat and bone meal has been found to give sufficient nitrogen supply for good baking performance of organically grown wheat. Mixing MBM to soil has been found to increase potato quality due to reduced incidence of potato scab (Verticillium dahliae) and decreased populations of parasitic nematodes. 80% of total N in MBM was effective compared to mineral N fertilizer.
The efficiency of added P depends, to a considerable extent, on the quantity of residual P in soils. When MBM is added as phosphate fertilizer, the labile pool of available P is increased and the capacity of soils to adsorb additional phosphate can be expected to decrease. The MBM-P is partly present as Ca5(PO4)3OH in the bone fraction and in organic form in the meat fraction. Scientists found a significantly larger P uptake from bone meal than from Kola apatite in a pot experiment. Kola apatite did not influence soil acetate extractable P contents, whereas bone meal increased the acetate-extractable P contents significantly. However, the scientists performed different laboratory tests of P-availability of bone meal (BM), and found considerable P-effect of bone meal in green house experiments. This indicates that bone meal is a better P source than the commonly used phosphate rock. As the dissolution of Ca5(PO4)3OH in the bones requires H+ions, pH is an important factor influencing P release from bone meal. Earlier investigations indicate that bone meal may be a more effective P fertilizer in acidsoils than in soils with pH>6. The scientists found that bone meal significantly increased P-Olsen level and microbial biomass in coffee plantation soils. Compared with soluble mineral P fertilizers, MBM-P is expected to have a greater residual effect. Studies using a mixture of rock phosphate and poultry manure have indicated that one time application was able to sustain four successive cropping of maize and cowpea. Meat and bone meal containing both organic and inorganic P-fractions may be expected to possess similar properties.
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