It might also cost many more lives than it saves. For example, if governments outlaw conventional fertilizer but the new one is more expensive to manufacture, then the cost of food could rise, causing starvation in poverty-stricken areas.
"iron sulfate, a readily available compound that steel foundries throw away by the tons."
"Fleming said iron sulfate in fertilizer adds iron and acidifies soil. “It does good things for soil health. It takes alkaline soil and makes it more neutral, closer to an ideal pH level,” he said. “The closer you get a neutral pH, the more crops grow. Crop yield would improve significantly.
“And iron-containing fertilizer added to the soil would be taken up in crops and help fight anemia and other iron deficiencies in people who eat them.”
The soil in Afghanistan is alkaline with a high pH, and could benefit from an ammonium nitrate/iron sulfate fertilizer, Fleming said. “What they use now, ammonium nitrate with calcium carbonate — which makes soil more alkaline — doesn’t make sense,” he said."
"But he said there are some ideas about how to get the non-detonable formula, which would not cost more to produce, into the marketplace. “We could give the formula to a neutral party and let them work with the Afghans, Pakistanis and others,” he said. “They could set up side-by-side demonstrations to see which fertilizer works better. Prove it to them gradually."
It won't be free for long. Once there's a demand for it, steel foundries will sell it to the highest bidder. That effect has already happened with municipal recycling: NYC once had to pay to have its recycled paper carted away. Now there are companies that will pay good money to receive the recyclable paper that the residents of NYC throw away. (And it's valuable enough that NYC tries to prevent rogue collectors from stealing it off the curbs before the city's garbage trucks can get to it.)