Resumen de Potash and phosphate: : Demanding industries
The need for food is growing in step with a swelling global population and the mineral fertiliser industry is under pressure to ensure that nutrient supply keeps up with consumption, Cameron Perks, IM Correspondent, finds.
On 24 April this year, the world's population was estimated to have hit 7.5bn. The number of humans on the planet has increased sevenfold in a matter of decades, a trend which, according to the United Nations (UN), has been driven largely by increasing numbers of people surviving to reproductive age, changes in fertility rates, increasing urbanisation and accelerating migration.
The global population is set to continue growing, albeit at a slower rate than in the last 50 years, to peak somewhere between 8.8bn and 10.8bn people by 2050.
Recent growth has been largely concentrated in Asia, which is now home to around 4.6bn people and the continent is expected to continue to have the fastest growing population for the foreseeable future, with over half of all 10 year olds now living in Asia and the Pacific.
With population growth comes increased demand for food. According to the UN's 2016 "Food & Agriculture Organization" report, demand for meat, fish and dairy products will see the strongest expansion rates to 2025. This in turn will boost the need for coarse grains, such as corn and soya beans.
World population by world regions
