Can We Still Grow More Food? Assessing the Effect of Population Growth on Fertilizer Consumption

Sustainable food production is very important to feed a rapidly expanding population whose need for physical nourishment and sustenance tends to increase over time. Since a large chunk of human food is cultivated by land, production mechanisms should be supported by arable croplands, irrigation, and appropriate technologies such as the use of fertilizers to increase the productivity of agricultural lands. Given the increased demand for food production brought about by continuous increase in population, this study attempts to measure the impact of population growth on fertilizer consumption that is an essential requirement in the production of agricultural food crops. Two cases are presented in this discourse: the first one uses a panel data analysis of six agriculture-intensive ASEAN countries from 1961-2010. The second case employed time series econometrics using data from the Philippines. Both cases concluded that fertilizer consumption is greatly affected by increasing population growth which triggers the economy to find means of growing food to support their dietary needs. Because most of the food is grown in agricultural lands, maximizing their agricultural yield necessitate the use of fertilizers.