Every gardener knows that phosphate is essential to the well-being of plants.
It is a vital nutrient, which is often in short supply in soil, and so many fertilizers contain phosphate to promote plant growth. Indeed, phosphate is essential to all life, not just plants, being responsible for capturing energy from food molecules and transferring it to those processes that need it. Therefore, chemical reactions involving phosphate probably played a part when the first life arose from non-living origins. However, chemistry alone is unlikely to provide the conditions for life. Some mechanism for concentrating the dilute chemical soup of the ancient oceans is required.