Mathematics

Land Use
All life on Earth requires space 

Earth has a total land area of 36.8 billion acres
11.4 billion acres is considered farmable land
Almost 1/3 of the usable land on Earth is considered potential farm land.

The United States uses 1.68 billion acres or 87% of the lower 48 states and 73% of their total land mass for food production.

To help put things in perspective,

California is 103 million acres, Montana is 94 million acres, Oregon is 60 million acres,  Maine is 20 million acres

Simply put, we use way to much space to grow our food.

Water Use

All life on Earth requires water 

The Earth has about 353 quintillion gallons of water sum and total.

10.6 quintillion gallons is fresh water or about 3% of total

3.2 quintillion gallons of fresh water is ground water

31.8 quadrillion gallons of fresh water is surface water

As a planet humans use about 3.6 trillion gallons daily 

At this rate we will cycle through all 31.8 quadrillion gallons of Earths surface water in about 24 years

  

We use way to much water for Irrigation and Electricity generation. 

Nutrients

All life on Earth requires building material

Plants require three main nutrients and many mirco nutrients, 

these nutrients are either organic or inorganic

Organic nutrients are molecules from carbon based organisms that are living or once lived

Inorganic nutrients are molecules that are lab derived, designed by humans

How Inorganic Fertilizer is made

Nitrogen Fertilizer (N) 

Made from natural gas

Phosphate (P²O⁵) 

Made from Phosphate rock with high concentrations of phosphorus is mined then the phosphate is dissolved with nitric acid (HNO3) to produce Phosphoric acid (H3PO4)

Phosphate rock can also be processed into water-soluble phosphate (P2O5) by a mixing with sulfuric acid (H2SO4) 

Potash (K²O)

Potash comes from ancient marine deposits and are buried deep in the earth.  Potash is either chemical extracted with Amine or hot water, or mined using traditional techniques.

In 2011 the United States used 

20.3 million tons of Nitrogen (N)

10.1 million tons of Phosphate (P²O⁵)  

12.6 million tons of Potash (K²O)     

with an approximate cost of

26.6 billion dollars

The World fertilizer use in 2008 

150 million tons of Nitrogen (N)

45.3 million tons of Phosphate (P²O⁵)  

41.4 million tons of Potash (K²O)     

with an approximate cost of

146.6 billion dollars

All this inorganic nutrient production requires mining, drilling, extraction, shipping, processing, refining, shipping, packaging and more shipping then application.  

Food production is BIG Business