Phosphorus (P) is an essential input into agriculture with no substitute. Thus international and intertemporal P allocations greatly impact food security which requires increased food production for a growing world population. As high quality phosphorus mines are being depleted, recycling gains importance and developed countries explore new technologies for P recycling. We analyse the effects of P recycling in developed countries on global extraction of rock phosphates and the imports of developing countries. We build a resource extraction model for a competitive fertilizer market that reflects the fact that most developed countries have P-saturated soils while soils in many developing countries are P-deficient. Our model extends a simple cake eating problem. We consider two types of countries that differ in demand and recycling options. We find that P recycling in developed countries does not only prolong the resource life-time, but it also increases the developing counties' share of the resource.
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Volume (Year): 68 (2009) Issue (Month): 6 (April) Pages: 1749-1755 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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