Friday, March 29, 2024

ALTERNATIVE VIEW: Nitrogen is necessary for life

Avatar photo
The entire debate over nitrogen fertiliser annoys me because it is both ignorant and ill informed. I was being polite.
The bills for fuel, fertiliser and agri-chemicals have all shot up in recent times and that’s threatening the profitability of some farming businesses.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

We had Landcorp employee Allison Dewes telling us the Government can do something like a tax on nitrogen fertiliser as something of a proxy tax on intensive farming. She went on and likened a tax on nitrogen fertiliser to a tobacco tax.

Landcorp also wants a tax on nitrogen. In its submission to the Tax Working Group it said “Pamu believes that placing a levy at source on fertiliser products containing nitrogen represents the best available mechanism to target excessive use of nitrogen in agriculture.”

One could respectfully ask, excessive according to whom?

Is there excessive use of nitrogen in agriculture? What evidence was presented to back that assertion?

We then had Greenpeace raucously, as it does, calling for a ban on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. It was called New Zealand’s hidden climate killer. 

That’s neither remotely credible nor scientifically based but that doesn’t worry Greenpeace. Rampant emotion to encourage donations from the ignorant or misinformed seems to be its mantra. Scientific facts don’t rate so are obviously not considered.

Starting by addressing the Greenpeace accusation that nitrogen is NZ’s hidden climate killer I read a 2017 NZ government report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

It dealt with our emissions by sector between 1990 and 2015.

The energy sector emissions increased by 36.7% over that period, industrial processes and product use by 47.3% and agriculture by just 16%.

So, during a time when cow numbers increased by 88% and nitrogen fertiliser use increased 500% our emissions increased by just 16%. That alone makes the Greenpeace statement that synthetic nitrogen fertiliser is NZ’s hidden climate change killer wrong in fact.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development recently released a report entitled Human Acceleration of the Nitrogen Cycle, Managing Risk and Uncertainty.

It is a good read from a highly credible organisation.

It does point out nitrogen is one of the most important elements for life on earth and about half the world’s population relies on nitrogen fertilisers for food consumption, making nitrogen fundamental to global food security. 

The OECD also tells us nitrogen will be increasingly essential to global food security as the population grows to an estimated 9.7 billion by 2050.

And Greenpeace wants it banned and Landcorp wants it taxed.

To quote my late father “They should stay in the shallow end”.

The OECD document is fascinating. You can read that the majority of nitrogen excretion is from manure and not fertiliser.

It also states natural sources create some 60% of total nitrogen dioxide emissions. Of the 40% attributed to human activity just two-thirds of that comes from agriculture.

There is considerable discussion on nitrogen mitigation strategies, which seems to me, infinitely more sensible than either taxing nitrogen fertiliser or wanting it banned.

It says that if water quality is the environmental policy goal then nutrient management, conservation tillage field, borders and riparian buffers can be associated to control nitrogen losses.

NZ farmers do much of that now.

The report does add conservation tillage can help reduce overland transport of nitrogen by reducing erosion and runoff.

Thanks heavens for Roundup, I say. Don’t Greenpeace want that banned too?

The report also contains many more initiatives farmers can take to reduce nitrogen runoff but it is important to realise most of that runoff comes from dung not fertiliser. The secret is to use a variety of responses rather than concentrate on just one.

The other fact to consider is that nitrogen in NZ is incredibly low by world standards.

We have a nitrogen imbalance of 63kg per hectare compared with the UK at 87 and the Netherlands at 199.

I find that fascinating because our water activists hold the Netherlands up as a role model.

There are several additional aspects of a nitrogen tax worth considering.

The first is that if nitrogen fertiliser becomes too expensive or is banned I can boost nitrogen by using soy by-product or palm kernel or fertilising with chicken litter.

They wouldn’t be subject to a tax but would inevitably increase runoff.

Another issue is if nitrogen is banned the logical thing to do, especially if you can irrigate, is to convert to dairy. It would then be more profitable, even at a reduced carrying capacity than either horticulture or cropping.

The use of nitrogen also has the effect of reducing food prices as the addition of the fertiliser dramatically increases yields.

So, my position is to consider the facts and they tell me nitrogen use is essential for farming anywhere, certainly in NZ.

Nitrogen does emit greenhouse gases but most of them come from non-farming sources.

Most important, my information comes from the NZ government and the OECD, not out of the air or from tarot cards. 

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading