Both sectors (arable and livestock) have also internal
low efficiencies in the use of phosphorus (33% and 45%
losses, respectively). Humans are the other subsystem
where absolute losses are not very large, but relative
capture of phosphorus into the agriculture system is very low (90% is lost) (see Figure 4). On a worldwide scale,
we are mining five times the amount of phosphorus that
humans are consuming in food, and only about one tenth
of the phosphorus entering the agriculture system is actually consumed by humans.