Cheap Supply Of Nitrogen Fertiliser Sought

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31724, 6 July 1968, Page 9

Cheap Supply Of Nitrogen Fertiliser Sought

There seems little doubt that a cheap supply of nitrogenous fertiliser could have a big impact on New Zealand agriculture. It is felt by some that it could be the next major breakthrough in markedly increasing the volume of agricultural production and contributing to the prosperity and standard of living of everyone in the country.

This sort of thinking is behind the nitrogenous fertiliser committee of the Canterbury Progress League that

is seeking to interest the Government in the establishment of a nitrogenous fertiliser industry in New Zealand. The chairman of the committee (Mr C. L. Austin) says New Zealand is one of the few primary producing countries that is not manufacturing its own nitrogenous fertiliser.

There is no question that in the past New Zealand farming has capitalised on clover to fix nitrogen for pasture growth and to build up fertility for an occasional cereal crop. This has had the great advantage of being a remarkably cheap system. However, it has been noticeable in recent years, that in spite of the relatively high cost of nitrogenous fertiliser, its usage has increased sharply.

In a report to the league’s committee, Mr R. L. Bennetts, a farm advisory officer of the Department of Agriculture, says that the cost of sulphate of ammonia has until this season been $54 a ton (for 21 per cent nitrogen), and that of calcium ammonium nitrate or nitrolime (23 per cent nitrogen), $64. “In spite of these high prices their usage has increased from 11,000 tons in 1962-63 to 21,000 tons in 196667—almost double in four years.

“It is my firm belief that if we could obtain a cheap form of nitrogen fertiliser—at says $32 a ton for 23 per cent nitrogen—then the whole pattern of nitrogen use and the demand for it would change completely,” he says. As Mr Bennetts has shown, there has unquestionably been a quickening of interest in nitrogen in recent years. A factor in this has been possibly the influence of Nuffield

farming scholars who have come back from Britain enthusiastic about nitrogen. For instance, Mr P. G. Morrison, of Sheffield, who was in Britain in 1966 as a Nuffield scholar, said subsequently that use of nitrogenous fertilisers had doubled in Britain in six years and more of it was used than superphosphate. He predicted that as the price of superphosphate went up in New Zealand, and if nitrogen could be bought for $36 to $4O per ton, New Zealand farmers would also change to the use of nitrogen.

If one assumes that nitrogen fertiliser is going to have an important role to play in New Zealand agriculture, and it seems that there is every reason to believe that it will do so, the key point is a supply of cheap nitrogen, and the league committee puts great emphasis on this. “On the evidence available the committee considers that this manure could be made available to the New Zealand farmers at about half the ruling price paid for imported manure,” Mr Austin says. To achieve this objective the project depends on the availability of cheap electric power. Raw materials required for the industry would be limestone, air and water, and either naphtha or electricity as a source of hydrogen.

“Since New Zealand possesses an abundance of electricity, no raw materials whatsoever would be required from overseas and therefore no overseas funds need be used,” says Mr Austin. “It is evident, therefore, that to manufacture really cheap nitrogenous manure cheap electricity is necessary and in order to achieve this an approach to the Government is needed.

“If the Government formed a nitrogenous manure corporation along the lines of the National Airways Corporation, cheap nitrogenous manure could be manufactured, thus ensuring the greatest economic use by the farmers for the greatest national benefit” Mr Austin says that the electrolytic plant suggested by Mr C. Martin, a member of his committee is similar to a recent installation in Peru and would fill New Zealand's industrial requirements for ammonia, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate as well as producing fertiliser. For a plant capable of producing 190 metric tons of nitrolime (20.5 per cent nitrogen) a day using electricity, Mr Martin puts the cost at about $4.5m, and using power at a “cheap” rate he envisages fertiliser being produced at between $l9 to $2O per ton. This makes no allowance for utilisation of oxygen which is a by-product of the process. . Assuming a selling price ex works of $32 per ton, the break-even point of the pro-

posed plant would probably be at about half production.

It has been suggested that the group of farmers in Canterbury who sought to establish a farmers’ co-operative fertiliser works in South Canterbury could be the nucleus of an organisation to manufacture nitrogenous fertiliser. Timaru, too, has been mooted as a possible site for the plant.

But to justify erection of a plant estimated to cost between s4m and ssm, there must be a substantial demand for the fertiliser and to generate this demand in advance of the plant becoming a reality it has been suggested that the Government might be prepared to subsidise imported supplies to the extent that, they would be available to the farmer in New Zealand at the price the product made in New Zealand would eventu-

ally be. Generating such a demand for nitrogenous fertiliser, it is felt, would be in the national interest as well as in the interest of the individual farmer.

The Minister of Agriculture and Science, Mr Taiboys, has been supplied with details of the progress of the committee's investigations and relevant reports. In a letter to Mr Austin he says that “since requirements for nitrogenous fertii isers appear to be rising, and there is evidence that the minimum size of an economic plant may be decreasing, I have arranged with the Direc-tor-General, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, for an up-to-date re-

view of the situation, which will take account of current developments in agriculture and fertiliser manufacture." A deputation from the league together with Messrs H. L. Pickering and R. L. A. Talbot, members of Parliament, has also met Mr D. J. Carter, Under Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, and he has ordered an immediate investigation and report by bis department. It is fairly obvious from the increased use of nitrogenous fertiliser, even at current high prices, that it has a place in New Zealand farming. But it is still fairly much a new concept in New Zealand and a comprehensive report showing just what part nitrogenous fertiliser can play is needed as a background to the current investigations of a nitrogenous fertiliser industry. If it is clearly shown that nitrogenous fertiliser is essential to New Zealand agriculture, then a major educational programme to the farmer will be needed.

tlon if applied to provide feed for newly-calved cows. Spectacular responses, too, have been recorded to use of nitrogen in the high country —some as high as 500 per cent—and Mr Bennetts sees no reason why similar responses to those obtained in Britain should not be achieved here in more intensive cropping rotations. Mr Austin has quoted a case of nitrogen, which gave no response in a first year crop of wheat out of pasture, lifting yield in the second year from 68} bushels an acre, without nitrogen, to 99 bushels with 84 units an acre.

The case was reported this week of two adjacent areas being sown to short rotation ryegrass after one had been fallowed and the other in a crop of barley. The grass grew much more vigorously in the fallowed area but when 63 units of nitrogen were applied to the area out of barley the yield of seed at 65 bushels was similar all over. It appears that It will be possible to take a clover crop off the former barley area as well, because the clover established well there and then was further stimulated by the nitrogen. On the other area the vigorous early growth of grass choked out the clover.

Mr Austin, in a letter to the Minister of Agriculture, has emphasised his own Interest in using nitrogen in the autumn on the property he farms with his son to reduce the need to grow supplementary winter feed.

Mr Bennetts says that cheap nitrogen could be used to produce high-quality out-of-season feed and in many cases would shorten the winter by perhaps six weeks. In the North Island, he believes, it could have a significant effect on butterfat produc-

The prospect of cheap nitrogen seems to hold out interesting prospects for New Zealand agriculture and warrants close investigation.