Phosphate P
What it is for
Phosphorus is one of the three nutrients a crop cannot substitute for, and unlike nitrogen it cannot be fixed from the air. Every tonne applied to a field came out of a mine, which makes phosphate the clearest case in this collection of food security resting directly on geology.
What it costs
Where it sits in the chain
Rock is mined, acidulated into phosphoric acid, and combined with ammonia into diammonium or monoammonium phosphate before it reaches a field. The processing stage is where the value concentrates, and it is not always in the country holding the rock. Morocco's position is the one that shapes the market: it holds by far the largest reserves of any country, and reserve concentration in phosphate is more extreme than in any metal on this site.
Who has it
| Country | Production | Reserves | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 110,000 | 3,700,000 | 2024 |
| Morocco | 30,000 | 50,000,000 | 2024 |
| United States | 20,000 | — | 2024 |
| Russian Federation | 14,000 | 2,400,000 | 2024 |
| Jordan | 12,000 | — | 2024 |
| Saudi Arabia | 9,500 | — | 2024 |
| Brazil | 5,300 | 1,600,000 | 2024 |
| Egypt, Arab Rep. | 5,000 | 2,800,000 | 2024 |
| Peru | 5,000 | — | 2024 |
| Tunisia | 3,300 | 2,500,000 | 2024 |
Production and reserves in thousand tonnes of marketable phosphate rock; agricultural use in tonnes of P2O5 nutrient; price is diammonium phosphate in US dollars per tonne. Three different substances at three stages.
Agricultural consumption by nutrient content.
Reported by the seller, summed across every destination. Measured as nutrient content, so a tonne here is not a tonne of rock or of DAP.
Reported by the buyer. Read against the production table: several of the largest importers mine none of it.
The largest single flows, drawn from seller to buyer, as reported by the importing country.
How concentrated it is
This is the most concentrated resource here, and the concentration is in reserves rather than current output. Several countries mine phosphate; the long-run supply question has one answer. On the demand side the fertilizer series shows where it goes, and the answer is the large agricultural economies — which is to say that a resource held in one place is required by the food systems of most others.
What this cannot show
Do not read the three columns on this page against each other without converting. Marketable rock, P2O5 nutrient content and diammonium phosphate are different substances: rock is roughly 30 per cent P2O5 by grade and DAP is a manufactured product with ammonia in it. The price quoted is DAP, so it moves with the price of natural gas through ammonia as much as with the rock.
Other resources
Copper · Lithium · Cobalt · Nickel · Potash · Iron ore · Aluminium · Zinc · Tin