아프리카 나무 / 케냐 가지 Alynn Kim(Grade 8)
Over the past century, there have been lots of inventions that changed our lives into totally different lives. Computers, cars, radios, microwaves, etc. They are countless. Still, if you ask me which is the most important one, I would say it’s a chemical process which is feeding almost 50% of the population nowadays. This chemical process takes a chemical from the air and mixes it up with another and makes fertilizers, which help plants grow. This chemical process is named after its inventor, Fritz Haber, our unsung hero.
So, how does the chemical process that feeds 50% of us work? It works in a simple way. We take nitrogen, a chemical that is 71% of air, mix it up with hydrogen, part of water, and produce ammonia, which is a type of fertilizer that helps plants grow. The process of producing fertilizers has naturally existed in nature. As plants die and rot over time, fertilizers are naturally produced. However, as our population grew and we needed more food, farmers grew plants all year round. After that, the soil was lacking fertilizers, later being a soil that was not fit for growing plants. As there are limited areas on earth, farmers couldn’t find a new place to grow plants. For them, the Haber-Bosch process seemed like a perfect solution, and it actually was. Fertilizer fertilized soils, and plants were able to grow. As farmers started to produce much more food there were few changes in the world.
One of the changes might be you sitting there, as the Haber-Bosch process contributed to 42% of the population's birth after it was invented in the 1900s. This chemical process didn’t only contribute to births but also sustained the population. The Haber-Bosch process fed 44% of the global population in 2000, later the number of people it fed increased to 48% of the global population in 2008. In 2015, this chemical process fed 3.5 billion people, which is almost 50% of the global population. Up to this point, you might think the Haber-Bosch process only contributed to the population. However, the Haber-Bosch process also contributed to improving the quality of lives. As crops grew faster and healthier, people wanted something more than being full, to have delicious food. This desire made farmers grow much sweeter fruits and corn, much greener vegetables and some new types of plants such as shinemuskats. Recently, people are no longer suffering from hunger as much as they did in the past century, and are enjoying delicious, new foods.
Though all the foods that we eat daily comes from the agriculture industry and farmers, people easily forget the importance of them. From the very beginning of human civilization till now, agriculture played important roles, feeding and sustaining the population. Still, people were always suffering from hunger throughout history, some of them even died from hunger. Nowadays, although the population has dramatically increased, the number of people starving has decreased. As Fritz Haber, along with his friend, has invented the Haber-Bosch process, this decrease is possible. Fritz Haber didn’t even patent his invention, so his fertilizer was sold for a cheap price, available for all people. As Fritz Haber’s invention has saved many lives and raised the quality of them. We shall call him an unsung hero.
Fritz invented a simple chemical process that has changed the world. The Haber-Bosch process, his invention used world-wide for the agriculture industry, feeding 50% of us nowadays, which is why he is a hero.