Chemical fertilizer in transformations in world agriculture and the state system, 1870 to interwar period

The role of fertilizer in spreading commercial agriculture during the first food regime (ca 1870 to the First World War) is well established. What is less understood is the role of fertilizer in industry at this time. This paper details superphosphate fertilizer, part of a class of chemical fertilizers that emerged in the metropoles from the 1870s, and its role in the transformations in world agriculture as well as in industry. Superphosphate fertilizer was not just for the soil. The manufacture of superphosphates also provided a base for the growth of chemical industries. This growth was constitutive of industrial transformations in imperial states—the second industrial revolution—in which mass production units became integrated through a handful of chemicals. One of these chemicals is sulphuric acid, of which superphosphates require large amounts in their manufacture. As the main market for sulphuric acid through the interwar period, superphosphate manufacturing created synergies with other industries and thus made sulphuric acid cheaper. By connecting the manufacturing centres of fertilizer to the multiple farming regions undergoing accelerated commodity production, this study shows that the first food regime and the second industrial revolution were mutually constitutive moments to explain transformations in agriculture and the state system in the long 19th century.