Washington-The Fertilizer Institute recently attended a Senate Foreign Relations Full Committee hearing titled “Alleviating Global Hunger: Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Leadership,” where it said fertilizer’s contribution to modern agriculture was recognized. Panel witnesses included Dr. Robert Paarlberg, political science professor at Wellesley College, and Edwin Price, associate vice chancellor and director for the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture. TFI said both panelists and committee members displayed a generally supportive attitude toward the proper use of fertilizer nutrients as part of the solution to solving the world’s food crisis. Dr. Paarlberg cited examples from his book, Starved for Science, to highlight that African farmers produce less than a fifth of the yields that farmers in other countries produce due to the fact that they have been denied access to productive technologies such as genetically engineered seeds and chemical fertilizers. TFI said that witnesses stated that the decreased yields from organic farming practices are not socially acceptable when you consider the increased yields and efficiencies of production agriculture. Representatives from the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture emphasized that proper fertilizer use, coupled with other modern agricultural technologies, is the only answer in alleviating global hunger. Several committee members agreed that, for farmers, fertilizer is a return on investment, and when used correctly, can boost yields in an environmentally sound manner.
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