Comments on: Farms, Factories, and a Dangerous Nitrogen Overload

By: Youngun Song

Youngun Song — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:34:00 +0000

http://youtu.be/W2lWSAVqh5E happy video~

By: don ohmes

don ohmes — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:30:00 +0000

And if someone has evolved a novel method for growing many vegetable crops that sharply reduces “artificial” N inputs, who will pay them for the knowledge and how much? Note — not a joke, but a serious question…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:23:00 +0000

Jeremy Martin’s point about changing the crop mix is on
target. There are a number of ecological approaches to agriculture that
can reduce nitrogen pollution and that need at least as much attention as the
tractor-mounted computers described in Lynch’s article (http://tinyurl.com/UCS-NSF11).

In the U.S., our agricultural landscape is increasingly
dominated by corn, which receives large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer each
year – much of which ends up in rivers, streams and, ultimately, the Gulf of Mexico.
And most of that corn is not used directly to feed people but instead is used
as animal feed, for processed foods, or to produce ethanol. By growing a
more diverse mix of crops on the landscape, we can grow less corn each year, which
means applying less nitrogen to the landscape, and therefore reducing nitrogen
pollution to local waters and the Gulf, emission of nitrous oxide (a powerful
greenhouse gas) from soils, and soil degradation – all while growing plentiful, nutritious
food.

Public policies and subsidies have an enormous influence on
farmers’ decisions. In the United States, we need a Farm Bill – up for
reauthorization by Congress this year – that encourages farmers to use diverse
crop mixes including cover crops that trap excess nitrogen.

Noel P. Gurwick, Ph.D.
Union of Concerned Scientists (ucsusa.org)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:48:00 +0000

We’ve got big “nitrogen spill” problems on our
side of the pond as well, with a dead-zone every summer in the Gulf of Mexico.
The largest contributor to the Gulf dead-zone is agriculture. Corn (or
maize in the UK) accounts for the largest share of agricultural pollution draining
into the Gulf, and what is the largest user of corn in the US?
Ethanol.

That’s why we argued recently there is a corn ethanol “spill” every day (http://goo.gl/Nuj5J).
High tech application of fertilizer is not enough, we need to change the crop
mix to address the problems. The good news is that we can do better, by
moving fuel production to water-wise crops like perennial grasses (http://goo.gl/NC0Yz)
and targeting these crops to places that are less suitable for annual crops, we
can protect water resources and maintain high agricultural productivity (http://goo.gl/t5x75).

Jeremy Martin, Ph.D.
Union of Concerned Scientists (ucsusa.org)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:48:00 +0000

By: michael kahn

michael kahn — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:38:00 +0000

What the story does not point out explicitly is that without this additional nitrogen, we can’t grow enough food to feed the number of people on the planet now–by about a factor of 2-3. Adding nitrogen produced by chemistry to the list of available farm inputs has had a major effect–the Green Revolution–that now has us in a position of dependency.