agriculture nitrogen News | Agriculture XPRT

Integrating animal and crop production can reduce nutrient leaching from agricultural fields

Nutrient leaching, the movement of plant nutrients from soil to water, can have negative effects on aquatic ecosystems due to eutrophication, which reduces the oxygen available in water, causing species and habitat loss. Ecological Recycling Agriculture (ERA), which is based on ecological principles and integrates crop production and animal husbandry, may limit this effect. This study ...

Nov. 1, 2015

By European Commission, Environment DG

EU Nitrogen Expert Panel presented to the European Parliament

The “Forum on Fertilizers and Nutrients for Growth” took place in the European Parliament on the 9 December 2014. The meeting was chaired by Julie Girling (ECR, UK) alongside Vice-chairs Peter Jahr (EPP, Germany) and Jan Huitema (ALDE, the Netherlands) who together managed and contributed to a lively debate. Pierre Bascou, Director, DG Agriculture and Rural Affairs and member of the ...

Dec. 10, 2014

By Fertilizers Europe

Amid food price spike, Nobel laureate eyes fertilizer

One of the reasons food prices have risen sharply is the cost of fertilizer: Nearly 2 percent of the world's energy goes into fertilizer production, which is becoming ever more costly as fuel prices rise. For decades, chemists have sought less energy-intensive ways to produce ammonia, the main component of fertilizer. The task has proven difficult, however, and only a handful of researchers are ...

Aug. 14, 2008

By MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Measuring the impacts of the Nitrates Directive on nitrogen emissions

The EU’s Nitrates Directive has led to significant decreases in nitrogen pollution in Europe, a new study suggests. Modelled scenarios with and without implementation of the Directive showed that it had resulted in a 16% reduction of nitrate leaching by 2008. These improvements could be further increased as implementation becomes stricter, the researchers conclude. More nitrogen is applied ...

Mar. 12, 2014

By European Commission, Environment DG

A new tool to assess nitrogen and phosphorus flow in agriculture

MITERRA-EUROPE is a new tool that models the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus, among other key pollutants, used in agriculture across all 27 Member States at regional, country and EU-27 levels. It can be used to calculate the effects of different strategies to minimise excess pollution. Many regions in the EU-27 use more nitrogen and phosphorus in agriculture than is required. The main sources ...

Mar. 19, 2009

By European Commission, Environment DG

China launches rural pollution study

The Chinese government has pledged funds to carry out the country's first survey of pollution sources in rural areas, according to state media. Zhang Fengtong, a senior official in the Ministry of Agriculture, told a press conference that the central government has allocated 230m yuan (US$31m) to the survey, which is set to get underway next year. The research will focus on animal, crop and ...

Dec. 27, 2007

By edie.net - Faversham House Ltd.

Soaring prices and climate change expose fertilisers as environmentally unsustainable

As oil and gas prices rise so does the price of artificial chemical fertilisers - the lynch-pin of industrial agriculture’s claims to be ‘efficient’. In the UK, the price of nitrogen fertiliser has doubled over the past year to around £330 per tonne. With oil currently at over $130 a barrel and with OPEC warning it could reach $200 by the end of the year, it has been suggested that fertilisers ...

Jun. 13, 2008

By Soil Association

Improve crop yield by removing manure solids

Manure has long been used as a crop fertilizer, but the challenge of finding an efficient use of the nutrients found in manure is ever present. The ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus in manure is low in relation to the nutrient needs of most crops. Therefore, crops tend to be overloaded with manure to meet the nitrogen requirement of agricultural crops, but the excess phosphorus from the process can ...

Mar. 29, 2011

By Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)

Fertilizers – a growing threat to sea life

A rise in carbon emissions is not the only threat to the planet. Changes to the nitrogen cycle, caused in large part by the widespread use of fertilizers, are also damaging both water quality and aquatic life. These concerns are highlighted by Professor Grace Brush, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, in her historical review1 of landscape changes around Chesapeake Bay, a large ...

Oct. 28, 2008

By Springer-Verlag GmbH

Plant strategies for optimising nitrate intake

The less nitrogen there is in the soil, the better plants are at using it. Researchers from INRA, CNRS and CIRAD, in cooperation with Czech colleagues, have recently shed light on the crucial role of a protein that enables plants to not only assess their environment but also activate the proper adaptive response based on the conditions. This research, published in the 2 March 2015 issue of Nature ...

Apr. 2, 2015

By INRA - French National Institute of Agronomical Research

The value of acknowledging societal costs of N2O emissions

Calculating the costs of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions to society as well as business is vital to understand the true economic gains of reducing N2O emissions, new research suggests. Increasing nitrogen use efficiency by 20% by 2020 could bring global annual benefits to the climate, health and environment worth US $160 (€118) billion, the researchers conclude. N2O is a major greenhouse gas ...

Jan. 23, 2014

By European Commission, Environment DG

Agricultural ammonia emissions could be reduced without affecting crop yield

Ammonia released by nitrogen fertilisers in Spanish agriculture could be reduced by up to 82% with only a very minimal impact on crop yield, finds new research. This could be achieved by combining optimised management of manure with the use of non-urea synthetic fertilisers. Agriculture accounted for almost 94% of total European atmospheric emissions of ammonia in 2011. The main sources of these ...

May 21, 2015

By European Commission, Environment DG

Africa, India to boost agricultural technology cooperation

[CHENNAI] Africa and India will boost cooperation in agricultural technologies for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a view to achieving food security by 2015. The Hyderabad-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the European Market Research Centre (EMRC) this month, to facilitate ICRISAT's ...

Mar. 22, 2010

By SciDev.Net

4R Research Fund Awards First Grants

The 4R Research Fund today announced it has awarded $273,500 in grants for five research proposals aimed at identifying the current state of knowledge and existing research gaps regarding fertilizer best management practices. The Fund, supported by the fertilizer industry and other stakeholders, is a science-based research initiative aimed at improving agricultural sustainability by expanding ...

Apr. 28, 2014

By The Fertilizer Institute (TFI)

Soil nitrogen test measures microbial nitrogen

Contrary to the prevailing view, cereal crops derive the majority of their nitrogen from the soil, not fertilizer. Soils differ considerably in microbial activities that determine nitrogen-supplying power, and these differences must be taken into account if nitrogen fertilizers are to be used efficiently. The Illinois Soil Nitrogen Test (ISNT) was developed for this purpose, and involves ...

May 13, 2009

By ScienceDaily

Nitrogen fertilizer works way into sea and destroys marine habitats - EC

Substantial increases in the flow of nitrogen into the sea have raised concerns about marine pollution. New research shows that commercial fishing is playing an important, but now declining, role in transferring this nitrogen back onto land. Enormous amounts of nitrogen fertilizer are applied to agricultural land to increase crop productivity. However, the use of such fertilisers can be damaging ...

Mar. 3, 2008

By European Commission, Environment DG

Arcadia Biosciences Takes Next Step to Enable Farmers to Receive Carbon Credits for Reduced Nitrogen Fertilizer Use

Arcadia Biosciences, Inc., an agricultural technology company focused on developing technologies and products that benefit the environment and human health, today announced that the company has submitted a carbon credit methodology to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The methodology would allow ...

Apr. 2, 2012

By Arcadia Biosciences, Inc.

Household compost as good for soil as conventional fertilisers, say EU researchers

Since 2005, conventional disposal of organic waste has been prohibited in Sweden. Instead, this waste is incinerated or separated at source, processed (composted or anaerobically digested) and recycled as fertiliser on crop land. A new study has investigated the use of organic waste from different sources as a fertiliser and found that residue from biogas production is an effective fertiliser. ...

Jun. 12, 2008

By European Commission, Environment DG

The hidden environmental costs of meat production

The meat industry involves global trading of feed, live animals and processed meat. A new study suggests that environmental costs are not necessarily expressed in the price paid by the consumers benefiting from cheap meat, but as environmental damage further back up the supply chain. Global meat consumption has increased by 75 per cent in 20 years, with consumers becoming increasingly removed ...

Sep. 5, 2008

By European Commission, Environment DG

Straw residue helps keep nitrogen on the farm

Scientists are exploring ways to reduce non-point pollution from agriculture. A new study finds that using straw residue in conjunction with legume cover crops reduces leaching of nitrogen into waterways, but may lower economic return. Agriculture is the largest source of nitrogen non-point pollution to waterways in the United States, flowing into streams and rivers via erosion from farmlands, ...

May 24, 2010

By Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)

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