When was the last time you bought a loaf of bread?
Chances are you read the ingredients list and saw flour, yeast and salt. But behind every slice is a surprisingly fragile global supply chain that starts with another often overlooked ingredient: nitrogen fertilizer.
Without nitrogen fertilizer, the world's farmers would struggle to produce enough food for our ever-growing population. It helps grow the wheat used in bread, the barley in beer, the canola that becomes cooking oil and the corn that feeds livestock. Research suggests roughly half of the world's population is fed thanks to synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.
However, recent global disruptions have suddenly made nitrogen fertilizers more expensive or difficult to get.
So why is this happening? And what does it mean for food security?
