Rethinking Agribusiness: Climate-Smart Agriculture, Fertilizers & Sustainable Solutions

Luca Buzzotta

Αdvocate of sustainable agriculture - CEO of Naturnova

6 min read
31/01/2025
Rethinking Agribusiness: Climate-Smart Agriculture, Fertilizers & Sustainable Solutions

You Can't Treat Agro Supply as an Ordinary Business

Climate Change and Global Food Security: A Growing Challenge

Global climate change is having a significant impact on agricultural cultivation. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that the total number of people currently suffering from food shortages worldwide is between 720 million and 810 million, and global food security remains a serious challenge. Climate change has led to an increasing frequency of extreme weather, such as floods, droughts, and heat waves, posing a threat to agricultural production. This is what said Mohammad Zaman, Section head of Soil and Water management and crop nutrition Section at Vienna’s Joint FAO/IAEA center, in a recent trip to China.

Fertilizers: Essential for Feeding a Growing Population

Zaman confirms that fertilizers play an important role in guaranteeing global food security as the current global consumption of agricultural fertilizers is about 200 million tons per year, contributing to more than 40 percent of the increase in food production.

Global climate change, however, has been evident in recent years. As greenhouse gas emissions increased, the climate became drier, soils became more acidic, and extreme weather increased, all of which created uncertainty for agricultural production. At the same time, not only is the global population still growing, and the human diet is becoming richer, but with industrialization, even less land area is left for agriculture, and soil quality is declining. How can we feed so many people at the current rate of population growth? One can only find ways to increase crop yields.

Applying organic fertilizers helps, but chemical fertilizers are vital, and their contribution to increased food production is indispensable.

The Global Fertilizer Challenge: Efficiency, Waste, and Environmental Impact

The world is currently facing a major problem if fertilizers are not efficiently utilized, especially phosphorus. Phosphorus is poorly utilized in fertilizers, and large amounts of it are deposited in the soil, which not only wastes resources but also pollutes the soil and water bodies, which in turn negatively impacts the human ecosystem.

Agriculture is More Than Just Business—It’s a System

As pointed out by Zaman, such situations require agro-input industry players to not simply treat agriculture as an ordinary business to cash in profits and keep the status quo. We should think of agriculture as a system involving everyone and everything. Fertilizers are applied to make the soil more fertile and produce more and better crops; they should be key to ensuring the ecological environment and people's and animals' health improve, thus establishing a virtuous cycle.

Bridging the Fertilizer Gap: A Focus on Africa

Globally, fertilizer use is uneven, with some countries using too much and others using too little. In Africa, for example, fertilizer use is particularly low, and local fertilizer production capacity is particularly limited. Therefore, from the perspective of the future development of global agriculture, whether it is production or trade, Africa deserves more attention.

Soil Health is Like a Bank Account: Balance is Key

To improve fertilizer utilization, environmentally friendly and cost-effective additives containing plant growth stimulants and soil remediation materials, among other things, must be developed. At the same time, resource use must be maximized, and energy consumption must be reduced to prevent secondary pollution while new fertilizers are being produced.

Zaman reminded us during his trip that current climate change has limited agricultural production. At the same time, agricultural production also produces a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn exacerbates climate change. Thus, agricultural production is a key issue, and if dealt with properly, it can become a solution, too.

To ensure a sustainable future, manufacturers of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and pesticides, must prioritize environmental friendliness. Rather than resting on their laurels, they should strive for constant innovation to develop superior solutions.

On the other side, growers should think of soil as a bank account, where they make deposits by applying fertilizer and withdraw money by harvesting the crop. How much nutrition to put in and how much to spend has to be considered holistically and not used in overdraft.

Smart Agriculture: Learning from New Zealand’s Approach

For instance, New Zealand's planting is very scientific; farmers will decide how much fertilizer to apply according to what kind of yield and quality of the crop is going to be achieved. This is smart agriculture.

The enterprises that will succeed in the future must know how to innovate, educate, and share. In this system, manufacturers produce environmentally friendly and efficient products, and growers know how to use them correctly to ensure that the soil is healthy, the crops grow well, and produce high-quality agricultural products, ensuring human health, thus forming a virtuous circle.”

The Role of Nitrogen Inhibitor and Phosphor Mobilizer Additives

Zaman was introduced to the Nitrification Inhibitor Fertilizer products when he was working in New Zealand and has conducted numerous trials in over 30 countries worldwide." Zaman said, "The conclusions of the trials showed that additives such as NMAX are very effective. First of all, the effect of crop yield increase is obvious. Experiments in many countries worldwide found that fertilizers with additives such as NMAX brought obvious crop yield increases on corn and soybeans.

Secondly, compared to other common nitrification inhibiting products, such as DCD and DMPP, NMAX is more economical, works with a lower dosage, has a better effect, and releases fewer greenhouse gases.

According to Zaman, among the greenhouse gases, there is a substance called nitrous oxide, which can cause great harm to human health. The FAO study showed that by using nitrification inhibitor fertilizer products, annual emissions of nitrous oxide were reduced by 28.4%, and nitrogen oxide emissions were reduced by 76.5% compared with conventional fertilizer application. These results show that nitrification inhibitor fertilizer products have the potential to be promoted globally, helping to reduce agricultural pollution and promote green and high-quality agricultural development.

Nitrification inhibitors can improve crop nitrogen nutrition and nitrogen fertilizer utilization by slowing down the conversion of ammonium nitrogen to nitrate nitrogen in the soil, increasing nitrogen fixation in the soil, and realizing the simultaneous supply of ammonium and nitrogen to the crop.

Climate-Smart Agriculture: Using Science to Optimize Farming

Climate-smart agricultural practices involve using isotope /nuclear techniques to obtain essential information on optimizing fertilizer use and improving agricultural productivity while maintaining soil health. Such techniques have a wide range of applications, as they’re even able to exponentially increase crops' shelf life, for example. Research is not only focused on nitrification inhibitors per se but also on how these technologies can be applied in practical agricultural production to improve crop productivity and quality while reducing environmental impacts.

Agricultural development should focus on optimizing soil, nutrient, and water management, as well as selecting high-quality varieties to improve crop yield, quality, and profitability. Countries such as China are vast, with different ecosystems in the east, west, south, and north, as well as rich soil structures, so Chinese agriculture shows diversity.

Smart agriculture, FAO and UN joint goal, is about looking at agriculture as a system and involving every part of it, especially the growers, making sure they are involved, giving them more tools and knowledge, and making them realize that only with good growing solutions can they increase production and income and achieve sustainable agriculture.

Fertilizer inputs are related to food security, and if they are not handled well, they will not solve the problem of global hunger, which in turn will lead to unrest, crime, and other illegal, unethical activities.

More efficient and environmentally friendly agricultural inputs are needed, like nitrification inhibitor fertilizers that are already worth promoting. As the global population increases, we need more good agricultural inputs to feed everyone, which is vital for world peace.

Further reading

How monoculture can cause self-toxicity and soil fatigue: Risks, control and benefits for agriculture

The natural dynamo sustainably unlocking soil and crops potential: Bacillus subtilis

7 Modern and efficient ways to protect crops from pests and diseases

Soil salinization and how farmers can overcome it

Circular agriculture - The soil microbiome and the advantage of using recycled nutrients

Agribusiness

How to take a soil sample for nutrient analysis

What is Climate-smart agriculture (CSA)?