Re:Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security
by jvanderbot on Monday May 02, 2022 @12:54PM
(#31237656)
Synthetic fertilizer does have negative impacts, but saying they have negative food impacts borders on oxymoron.
Runoff to freshwater inducing toxicity is one major impact from over fertilization, which is not an implication of the product itself, but it's over use.
I'm told. IANA farmer but I know many and worked with ag and water quality researchers for a few years in MN, USA.
Re:Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security
by giantg2 on Monday May 02, 2022 @01:08PM
(#31237866)
Not just overuse, but use on land that is too close to bodies of water without riparian buffers.
Re:Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security
by marcosdumay on Monday May 02, 2022 @04:23PM
(#31240410)
And also wrong dispersal. All the fertilizer that gets on the water is wasted and does nothing but increase the farmer expenses.
Growing without synthetic fertilizers appeals to the symbiotic Nature living, I get that. It's an ideal like any other, maybe worth of pursuit. But we first need to make peace with the fact that we'll either:
a) Be able to feed about a billion humans at most; or
b) Completely destroy many pristine ecosystems by multiplying arable land area by 5.
Removal of synthetic fertilizers would induce a yield drop of 80%: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cereal-crop-yield-vs-fert...