Canada's 'pink' gold rush attracts the world

Farmers around the globe are demanding better access and prices to the indispensable and irreplaceable pink salt known as potash With the precious cargo slung over his shoulder, Vikram Singh strides through his field spreading the white granular stuff where it matters most.“I can't afford to waste any...I had to buy it on the black market,” says the 38-year-old farmer from Dostpur Mangroli village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. For the last two decades, Singh has toiled his field for wheat and rice to feed his family of six, using the white stuff to stimulate the crops and his livelihood, in India's once-fertile Gangetic Plain. “I have to use more and more because the land is not as good as it once was...this is not only expensive, it's very hard to get,” says Singh, who paid twice the retail amount of 1,200 rupees (about $23) for a bootleg 50-kilogram bag of the white stuff -- potash-based fertilizer. Like Singh, farmers around the globe are demanding better access and prices to the indispensable and irreplaceable pink salt known as potash, which optimizes the delivery of nutrients to plants. Continue reading this article here.