PwC: Mining's Crucial Role in Food Security 'Overlooked'

PwC’s latest annual report on the global mining industry shares insights into how the sector is reinventing its role in the global economy, by mobilising the resources needed for sustainable growth.

The 21st edition of ‘Mine’ – subtitled ‘Preparing for impact’ – concludes that, in 2023, the global mining industry “faced a challenge that was at once unprecedented and familiar”, with the industry forced to cope with “cyclical and structural issues” that saw the leading mining companies “invest in growth and transformation even as revenues and profit margins come under pressure”.

Mining, says the report, has a unique role among global industries, because its biggest companies “help feed the world, while lighting the path to a low-carbon future and providing materials for infrastructure development and consumer needs”. 

This unique role, says PwC, is performed “amid increasing regulatory, economic and societal pressures”, meaning that is seeing mining companies reinvent their business models “to create value in new ways”. 

It says that a key value of mining is how “it helps the world feed itself”, adding that its role in food production, while vital, is also often overlooked. 

The report is co-authored by Andries Rossouw, PwC’s Africa Energy, Utilities and Resources Leader, and Germán Millán, a Partner with PwC Chile.

PwC: food security 'a fundamental challenge'

Rossouw and Millán write that food security, and how the world feeds itself, “is one of the fundamental challenges society faces”. 

They cite United Nations figures that suggest as many as 700 million  people have insufficient access to food. They also quote World Economic Forum insight that shows 16 countries have high hunger levels. 

To ensure a well-fed future, they say, agricultural production needs to grow more than 55% over the next two decades, and that mining will have a crucial role here, because it supplies many of the raw materials needed to improve crop yields. 

The cite six key uses in which minerals and metals improve food security, of which fertiliser is the most important:

• Fertilisers
• Water treatment
• Soil improvements
• Micronutrient supplements
• Pesticides and herbicides
• Animal feed supplement

Commercial fertilisers are comprised of three main ingredients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. 

The PwC report points out that, while nitrogen is chiefly sourced from the oil and gas value chain, potassium and phosphorus are mined from phosphate rock and brine. 

Synthetic fertilisers have been pivotal to the successful decades-long effort to enhance crop growth, yield and quality, the authors point out, but add that an estimated 40% of soils globally are deficient in phosphate. 

“It’s no surprise phosphorus is classified as a critical mineral for China and the European Union, and potassium is a critical mineral for China and Canada,” they write.

The authors add: “To grow the agricultural products that feed the 1.9 billion additional people who will live on the planet by 2050, global annual production of phosphorus needs to increase by 25% (55 million tonnes per year) by 2050.

“This means  harnessing technology – including the revolutionary implications of AI – to advance productivity, sustainability and safety.”

In the second part of our look at the PwC mining report, we explore the role urban mining has to play in making the mining industry more efficient and sustainable.