A healthy global food supply requires healthy soil, which requires fertilizer to replace and or enhance the nutrients found in the soil. Many farmers use synthetic fertilizers, which are produced from petroleum and fossil fuels. Synthetic fertilizers have been historically cheap, but events in recent years have driven the price up and the supply down: supply chains disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic then faced a reduced supply of Russian-made fertilizers, due to the war in Ukraine. The lack of fertilizer threatens global food security, in addition to making growing food cost-prohibitive for small scale farmers.