Elie: Elie moved page Fertilizer to Archive:000/Fertilizer without leaving a redirect: Huge_refactor

2024-10-26T20:29:42Z

Elie moved page Fertilizer to Archive:000/Fertilizer without leaving a redirect: Huge_refactor

← Older revision	Revision as of 16:29, 26 October 2024
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Elie: Created page with "Fertilizer provides nitrogen & minerals to the soil for growing crops. Most fertilizer is produced synthetically via the [//wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber-Bosch_process Haber-Bosch process] (for nitrogen). {{considerations}} ==Carbon emissions== {{sum|Not very significant}} * Fertilizer is responsible for just 1.4% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions but over 70% of the world's protein. * Without synthetic fertilizers, the world would like..."

2023-07-18T03:45:22Z

Created page with "Fertilizer provides nitrogen & minerals to the soil for growing crops. Most fertilizer is produced synthetically via the [//wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber-Bosch_process Haber-Bosch process] (for nitrogen). {{considerations}} ==Carbon emissions== {{sum|Not very significant}} * Fertilizer is responsible for just 1.4% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions but over 70% of the world's protein. * Without synthetic fertilizers, the world would like..."

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Fertilizer provides nitrogen & minerals to the soil for growing crops. Most fertilizer is produced synthetically via the [//wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber-Bosch_process Haber-Bosch process] (for nitrogen).

{{considerations}}

==Carbon emissions==
{{sum|Not very significant}}
* Fertilizer is responsible for just 1.4% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions but over 70% of the world's protein.
* Without synthetic fertilizers, the world would likely see lower [[crop yields]] → more [[land]] needed to produce the same amount of [[food]] → more [[deforestation]].
** Maybe we could partly offset this problem by reducing [[food waste]]. But we should do that ''in any case'' - and if we do, we wouldn't need as much fertilizer in the first place.
* Manure is not truly an alternative to fertilizer {{light|(in the big-picture sense)}}:
** Animals don't generate nitrogen or minerals; they can only poop out what was already in their food. Most manure comes from animals raised on grains that were grown with fertilizer. Without fertilizer, there would be far less manure available.
** Similar situation is true for compost.
* Nitrogen-fixing crops (on their own) might not be able to provide enough soil nitrogen to feed the world. {{rn}} {{qn}}
* In most of the countries with high [[hunger]] rates, [lack of fertilizer / low crop yields] is a major cause of the food shortages.

* If we can phase out fossil fuels for [[energy]] {{light|(the hard part, and most significant part of stopping climate change)}}, then we can phase out fossil fuels for fertilizer {{light|(the smaller easier part)}}.

==Leaching into groundwater==
{{sum|{{rn}} }}
{{empty}}

==Long-term health of soil==
{{sum|Manageable}}
There are some cases of conventional agriculture causing soil degradation over time (low [[crop yields]] in the long run, despite high crop yields in the short run), but this probably has less to do with fertilizer, and more to do with monoculture and pesticides.

{{pn|Research needed for this page:
* Explore polyculture styles that use fertilizer
* Soil micro-organisms: How to preserve them in the long run while maintaining high yields
}}

==Supply of non-nitrogen minerals==
{{sum|Plentiful}}
{{empty}}

Archive:000/Fertilizer - Revision history

Elie: Elie moved page Fertilizer to Archive:000/Fertilizer without leaving a redirect: Huge_refactor