How to maximize soil potential and combat over-fertigation with Agrinoze
Fertilizer has played a key role in helping farmers keep up with exponentially rising food demand for over 100 years. Today, almost all crop production depends on large amounts of fertilizer, and the consequences are becoming ever more apparent.
Environmental Impact: Pollution and degradation of farmland
Fertilizer use is taking a toll on our environment. Fertilizers often overflow into farm adjacent ecosystems such as streams, disrupting their ecological balance and making them over-fertile. Fertilizer is just one of many river pollutants that accumulate and create toxic “dead” zones that contain little to no oxygen and kill fish and other marine life. One notable dead zone is in the Gulf of Mexico, where river pollution accumulates from across the US.
Fertilizer use, along with tillage and poor irrigation practices, actually deplete land fertility in the long term. As a result, crops are grown in an environment that causes them stress and hinders their growth and yield potential. Ironically, this has often led to increased fertilizer use which traps farmers in a never-ending and increasingly costly cycle.
Economic Impact: The global food market
As a major agricultural input, fertilizer prices directly affect global food prices. Recently, a global shortage of natural gas has decreased the supply of ammonia, the main component in nitrogen fertilizer production. As a result, there isn’t enough fertilizer to meet demand. Experts note that supply chain complications in the wake of COVID-19 are further fanning the flame, and as farmers prepare for the next planting season, fertilizer prices are skyrocketing.
It is becoming likely that farmers will allocate less acreage to crops that require large amounts of fertilizer (for example, corn and wheat) in the next growing season. Consequently, we can expect a rise in the prices of many staple goods that rely on these crops, and not only food products like snack foods, salad dressings, soft drink sweeteners, chewing gum, peanut butter, and other flour products will be affected. Other uses of corn include animal feeds, fuel ethanol, and industrial products like soaps, paints, adhesives, cosmetic powders, dyes, pharmaceuticals, insulation, and other starch products — to name a few.
In Europe, many nitrogen fertilizer plants have been forced to shut down due to the natural gas shortage, adding to concerns that rising food production costs could drive up inflation. The EU is the world’s largest wheat exporter, meaning that consequences will be global and far-reaching.
A Breakdown of Biofertilizers
The current alternative to chemical fertilizers is biofertilizers — living microbes, such as bacteria, that enable plants to better utilize nutrients in the soil. By implementing biofertilizers, farmers can reduce the application of chemical fertilizers.
However, biofertilizers are not a complete substitute since they contain significantly fewer nutrients, which means that farmers still need to use chemicals. Additionally, the production of biofertilizers is complex and expensive, and the final product has demanding storage requirements and a short shelf-life.
The Secrets Below the Surface
Many kinds of plant-friendly bacteria are naturally occurring. However, conventional irrigation methods typically apply water in intervals which temporarily flood the soil and create an anaerobic environment (lacking in oxygen). To maintain an aerobic environment, one in which friendly bacteria can thrive, irrigation must be precise and respond to changes in real time. As proven in several projects, Agrinoze’s precision irrigation & fertigation solution optimizes irrigation and creates a soil environment that promotes “good” bacteria and the utilization of naturally occurring nutrients. While biofertilizers can cut a farm’s chemical fertilizer use by 50%, Agrinoze farms have reported a decrease of 70–100%. Why spend billions of dollars developing something that nature makes for free, given the right environment?
Some examples of the significant reduction, and in some cases elimination, of fertilizer use with Agrinoze:
> Bananas
> Dates
Find more information about sustainable agricultural practices here
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