American Poop Could Replace Lots of Gulf-Dependent Fertilizer

Hey, farmers! War-flation on fertilizer got you feeling down? Elect Congresspeople and a President with a genuine, well-informed interest in economic self-sufficiency, and, according to a new study from Cornell, you could ditch fertilizer from the Persian Gulf and get most of your fertilizer from right here at home and good old American butts:

…we flush away and discard a surprising amount of nutrients: human and animal waste contains enough nutrients to meet 102% of nitrogen needs on US farms, and 50% of phosphorus demand. An economic evaluation of this wasted waste revealed that it is equivalent to $5.71 billion according to 2020 prices; adjusted for inflation that would be $7.19 billion today. Not only would this supply cut huge fertilizer costs for farmers, but it would also reduce reliance on the fossil fuel sources needed to make synthetic fertilizers.

As one study author noted, relying on existing nutrient supplies could in the future better insulate farming and protect food security from the effects of war, which can tighten the supply of fossil fuels and disrupt the trade routes required to make the synthetic versions [Emma Bryce, “The World Is Sitting on $7 Billion of Wasted Fertilizer,” Anthropocene, 2026.04.17].

Of course, that probably means poop pipelines on the prairie:

[Professor and co-author Chuan] Liao said the best approach to scale the use of waste in U.S. agriculture is to take advantage of opportunities at the local level. He gave the example of a pig farm in the middle of miles of corn fields: With the right infrastructure and incentives, waste from the pig farm could be used to satisfy the nutrient-hungry corn fields right next door.

“We’re advocating for a decentralized system, so that waste can be processed locally,” Liao said. “But in order to do this, we need to coordinate across different sectors such as agriculture, waste and energy. The technology is there, but we need governance and infrastructure to scale up to the entire U.S.” [Caitlin Hayes, “Animal and Human Waste Could Slash Synthetic Fertilizer Use in US,” Cornell Chronicle, 2026.04.15].

It would probably be easier to just stop waging impulsive wars on a whim that roil global supply chains and don’t produce decisive victory. But we might save time and money if we rerouted trucks from ports to local sewage plants and CAFOs and spread our own poop on our fields.