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Welcome, I retired in 2017 after a career spanning 43 years in the Australian fertilizer industry. Not long after, the fertilizer manufacturing complex at which I spent most of my working life closed having operated for 53 years. Its history was in danger of being lost. So too was the early history of the fertilizer industry in Australia, from the time superphosphate was first manufactured in commercial quantities in Melbourne in 1878. I had worked in various roles in my career and thought I was in as good a position as any to record this history on paper. As well as fertilizer manufacture and use in Australia, I discuss important international milestones, including the synthesis of ammonia using nitrogen extracted from the air by the Haber Bosch process, generally regarded as the most important technological development in the 20th century. The fertilizer industry has been fundamental to the success of Australian agriculture, but little has been written on its history and development. Famine to Feast fills that void.
Garry Kuhn
Author
Famine to Feast
This book looks at key developments in the supply of fertilizers, overseas and in Australia, in sustaining the world’s population. Other uses that are made of chemicals used as fertilizers are discussed, as well as some of the environmental impacts of fertilizer manufacture and use.

