Fisons at the root of modern agriculture

Joseph Fison

The climate of the British Isles may be a cause of complaints for some, but it also ensures the ideal conditions for the most productive agriculture in Europe. The development of agriculture has gone hand in hand with development of an advanced industry, providing efficient plant nutrition. A pioneer in this industry, Fisons was the world’s first industrial producer of phosphate fertilizer, and when this activity was taken over by the nitrogen pioneer Hydro, it was marriage not only of convenience but of two cultures, both deeply committed to correct plant nutrition.

Justus von Liebig was the first to discover that phosphate of lime in bone meal could be rendered more readily available to plants by treatment with sulphuric acid. “The crops on the field diminish or increase in exact proportion to the diminution or increase of the mineral substances conveyed to it in manure”. Soon after Liebig’s statement, Murray and Lawes discovered that phosphate rock responded the same way.

A heritage from dinosaurs
No wonder that the foundation for a new industry was laid. Phosphate was also found in coprolites, the fossil excrements of the great dinosaurs that once roamed the earth. Beds of this excrement were found in southeast Britain, and around 1840 scientists found that when coprolites were dissolved in sulphuric acid this produced a product that was given the name superphosphate

A heritage from dinosaurs
No wonder that the foundation for a new industry was laid. Phosphate was also found in coprolites, the fossil excrements of the great dinosaurs that once roamed the earth. Beds of this excrement were found in southeast Britain, and around 1840 scientists found that when coprolites were dissolved in sulphuric acid this produced a product that was given the name superphosphate

The agricultural community was quick to appreciate the value of this new material, and as the process was simple, factories soon sprang up all over Britain. By 1870 there were about 80 factories making superphosphate. Four of the companies were eventually brought together under one association, the Fisons Group.

A business of reputation
In 1856, Joseph Fison (born 1819), began to experiment with the manufacture of super-phosphate, ingeniously using his stone flour mills for grinding the phosphate-rich coprolites. Quickly he built up a good trade with a reputation for excellent quality. After his death in 1878, the business continued under the leadership of his two sons, James and Herbert.

They eventually expanded opening overseas agencies. By 1914, exports equalled domestic sales, and their works at Bramford were enlarged.

In the early 1920s the fertilizer industry ran into hard times. A pattern of rationalization seemed to be the only answer. To gain necessary size, strength and stability, Fison, Pachard & Prentice Ltd was founded on 16 August 1929. The following year, Doughty Richardson Fertilisers Ltd was acquired. Through its predecessors this company could trace its history to as far back as 1791. A steady process of expansion and takeovers continued, including the acquisition early in 1933 of the horticultural fertilizer business of Renny Forbes of Alperton.

An important result of the 1929 amalgamation was the building at Cliff Quay, Ipswich, of the first modern fertilizer factory on a deep-water quay. Here production started in 1934 with an output of 80,000 tonnes a year of superphosphate produced by the Oberphos method. Fisons became the first company in Europe to produce granular superphosphate. In the same year activities were extended farther north by the purchase of two Newcastle concerns.

One name, one brand
Up to 1942 the companies absorbed by Fisons, Packard & Prentice continued generally to sell their products under their own names and brands. In that year it was decided to change the name of the company to Fisons Limited, and all subsidiaries were incorporated in the one central organization. Thus, at the height of the Second World war, Fisons Limited came into existence and a new slogan was coined: “It’s Fisons for fertilizers”. The following year, more companies joined the group.

At the beginning of 1945 it was obvious that the end of the exhausting war was in sight. As part of Fisons’ planning for progress in time of peace, a Research and Development Department was set up at Ipswich.

Until 1939 the phosphate used in Britain was in the form of single superphosphate of about 18 percent water solubility. To conserve shipping space during the war, supplies of triple super-phosphate (46 percent solubility) had been imported from the USA. The British government approached the fertilizer industry with a request to investigate the possibility of producing this material. As a direct result of this, the decision was made to build the Immingham facility.

Walter G. T. Packard

A leader in research
The Immingham fertilizer works started production in May 1950. In line with the company’s policy on research and development, the Red House and Walk Farms at Levington, near Ipswich, were purchased in 1953. This established a major fertilizer research station with some 400 acres of trial fields. Opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1957, Levington has since become one of the best-known research centres of its kind in Western Europe.

Triggered by some of the non fertilizer interests acquired with earlier takeovers, the 1950s saw a rapid expansion in Fisons, both in terms of size and diversity of interests, including; fertilizers, sprays, glassware, pie fillings, aviation, drugs and refrigerated transport. In 1960 Fisons Limited became a holding Company with some 40 separate subsidiaries and associate companies.

At the same time horticultural and farm fertilizer interests were organized in separate companies – Fisons Horticulture Ltd and Fisons Fertilizers Ltd. In 1960 the business that had started in 1843, reached sales of one million tonnes of fertilizers a year for the first time.

Innovation and technological progress
From the beginning Fisons had been associated with innovation and improved technology in the production of fertilizers. Although other parts of the group were developing, capital investments continued in fertilizers as new and more efficient production processes were necessary in order to remain competitive in the increasingly difficult British and worldwide markets.

As time passed, new breakthroughs were harder to come by however Fisons had an advantage in having the resources of Levington Research Station - not only on the agronomics of fertilizers, but also in the high calibre scientists devoting their skills to the development of new manufacturing processes.

Fisons had entered ammonia production in the late 1930’s, responding to increasing concern in the UK market regarding the security of supply of nutrient nitrogen for fertilizer production. Further developing its nitrogen resources, the company opened an ammonium nitrate plant at Stanford-le-Hope on the Thames estuary in 1959. This gleaming modern chemicals plant was officially opened by Lord Netherthorpe, President of the National Farmers Union of England and Wales. When a new ammonium nitrate complex came on stream in 1965, the nitric acid plant was the largest of its kind in the world. The same record was claimed by a second nitric acid plant, (Immingham No. 2), in 1967 and a third which was commissioned in the same year at Avonmouth in association with the third Fisons complex for the production of ammonium nitrate.

1982: Joining Hydro
By the time Fisons fertilizer activities were taken over by Norsk Hydro in 1982, they had undergone considerable trials. Overcapacity, fluctuating markets both domestically and abroad in combination with the effects of the aftermath of the first oil price shock in 1973 had seriously undermined the solid business of the previous years. The new company formed by Hydro in 1982 had a total force of 2727 employees, located at eight different sites. During that year, the business achieved a sales volume of 1,3 million tonnes, equivalent to 472 tonnes per employee. Five years later, the volume was 10 percent higher and the number of employees had fallen to just below 1000, however, with a three-fold improvement in volume sales per employee, from 472 tonnes to 1438 tonnes.

At the dawn of the new millennium, the European fertilizer industry was again facing a situation of overcapacity and serious difficulties. Hydro Agri entered into a period of intensive restructuring that included the closing of some of its factories. Among these was the plant at Immingham.

However, Hydro Agri continued to serve the British farming community with high quality products from its plants in other parts of Europe, maintaining the agronomic expertise that had been developed over the years and that was part of the Hydro approach to the fertilizer business.

With the Fisons legacy as part of its heritage, Yara is building on the achievements of two fertilizer industry pioneers and is continuing to serve agricultural markets around the world in their spirit. Yara is committed to using agronomical knowledge and high quality products to promote balanced plant nutrition and sustainable agriculture everywhere.