Massive Imbalances in Global Fertilizer Use | Science

From the news release, "Study highlights massive imbalances in global fertilizer use" (Hat tip: Dot Earth):

"Most agricultural systems follow a trajectory from too little in the way of added nutrients to too much, and both extremes have substantial human and environmental costs," said lead author Peter Vitousek, a professor of biology at Stanford University and senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment.

"Some parts of the world, including much of China, use far too much fertilizer," Vitousek said. "But in sub-Saharan Africa, where 250 million people remain chronically malnourished, nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrient inputs are inadequate to maintain soil fertility."

From the Science study, "Nutrient Imbalances in Agricultural Development," by Vitousek et al.:

More generally, policies supporting nutrient additions should be targeted toward food security objectives early in agricultural development, but those systems should be monitored for changes in soil quality and nutrient losses, as well as for yields. As food security is approached, more attention should be paid to other outputs of agricultural systems—their effects on air and water, on biological diversity, on human health and well-being—and to the ecological and agronomic processes that control them.

One constraint to our ability to diagnose nutrient-driven problems, and to design their solutions, is the scarcity of detailed, on-farm nutrient budgets that quantify multiple pathways of nutrient input and loss over time and under alternative management practices. Both China and the European Union have supported integrated, multiscale biogeochemical research that yields policy-relevant information on nutrient balances and their implications. Neither the United States nor most other governments have done as well.

• print