- Author: Mark Lundy
Most California growers are likely aware of state regulations that will soon require some level of nitrogen budgeting at the farm level in many parts of the state. However, it is not only regulators interested in tracking and documenting nitrogen fertilization practices. This is a blurb from today's American Society of Agronomy Science Policy Report:
Fertilizing sustainable farms
In the future, farmers are likely to be faced with growing environmental traceability pressures that are largely driven by major retailers such as Walmart. Walmart, for example, is requiring food companies that use commodity grains to develop a “fertilizer optimization plan” as part of its goal to reduce fertilizer use on 14 million acres in the U.S. by 2020. The company began its fertilizer program by working with groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). EDF and other groups pushed the retailer, which had been focusing its efforts on efficiency and climate efforts at its individual stores, to examine its supply chain for environmental impacts. Jenny Ahlen of EDF said, “they hadn't really addressed their supply chain, which is where we think 90% of their impact actually happens.” The company set a goal to reduce 20 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2015. "When you look at food more closely, fertilizer, particularly nitrogen fertilizer, produces some really powerful greenhouse gases," Ahlen said. Walmart is also looking at issues such as water usage and no-till crop production. Brittni Furrow, a senior manager for sustainability initiatives at Walmart, said, "We're now looking at next year and how we can look at resilient sourcing across commodities.”
link: https://www.agronomy.org/science-policy/sspr/2013-12-18/#2829
As I've mentioned in previous posts, this doesn't need to be a 'bad news' story. Optimizing N fertilization is an economic-environmental win-win, which typically results in the least amount of N pollution per unit of food produced. It will likely require more frequent and detailed observations of the crop-soil system, and, perhaps, expanded use of split-applications of N fertilizer. We are working on tools to make these field-based observations easy-to-use and valuable in decision making. I'd welcome your input, ideas and participation!