UK bails out an American company to prevent food supply crisis
CNN
The UK government has agreed to subsidize a major US fertilizer manufacturer at a cost of several million pounds to taxpayers in order to restart carbon dioxide production vital to Britain's food supply.
The government announced the extraordinary intervention in a statement late on Tuesday. The plan should allow Illinois-based CF Industries (CF) to restart one of its two UK plants and resume CO2 supplies to the food and drink industry. Safely restarting the ammonia plant is expected to take "several days," CF Industries said in a statement.
CF Industries decided last week to halt operations at its UK fertilizer plants because soaring natural gas prices had made them unprofitable. That announcement sparked warnings of a food supply crisis because its plants also produce about 60% of Britain's food-grade carbon dioxide.