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This doesn't apply to a large amount of farming today, much of the issues with erosion have been solved by reducing tillage and other improved practices like co
by mikey_p 6y ago
This doesn't apply to a large amount of farming today, much of the issues with erosion have been solved by reducing tillage and other improved practices like contour farming, adding waterways, cover crops etc. None of this is related to fertilizers and their usage.
Also if you want to get the most out of your fertilizer you will automatically be trying to reduce erosion. No one wants to put investment into soil that is going to disappear or be lost.
There is also an increasing amount of regulation around controlling runoff of fertilizers in order to control water quality in lakes, rivers etc. Follow what is happening in Ohio and Lake Erie for example.
- SuoDuanDao 6y agoThis is a fair distinction, but artificial fertiliser still requires fossil fuels to produce and so isn't sustainable even if it has zero negative impact on the soil's health.
- hedora 6y agoArtificial fertilizer doesn’t require fossil fuel. It requires energy, atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process Roughly 50% of the nitrogen in average humans was extracted from the atmosphere using this process; it is well-established.
- SuoDuanDao 6y agoInteresting - so theoretically one could run the process off photovoltaics? Didn't know that! Still, if we had to change to renewable sources of energy to run these processes tomorrow,the price would likely jump so enormously that their value would be mostly in niche applications.