Twentieth Century Fertilizers in France from Natural Mixing to Artificial Making (1890-1970)

Compound fertilizer is a material composed of a mixture of primary nutrients. The physical constitution and presentation of compound fertilizer evolved from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. This material was originally the subject of purely empirical knowledge, but later it gradually attracted chemists, who developed it in confrontation with agronomists and farmers. In return, in the interwar period compound fertilizer gave the chemical community a sense of mission: to solve the “urgent need” to increase fertilizer consumption and to make the product “rational” with respect to transport costs, storage stability, ease of use, and, of course, agronomical efficiency. This paper traces the confrontation of actors and technical and industrial changes that guided the development of compound fertilizer in France from 1890 to 1970.