Ee Ling Ng, The University of Melbourne; Deli Chen, The University of Melbourne et Robert Edis, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
Somehow we need to grow more food to feed an expanding population while minimising the problems associated with nitrogen fertiliser use.
When working with garden chemicals, always make sure you are wearing gloves. Apply sprays and dusts downwind and wear goggles if necessary. Always follow the directions.
You’ve heard of cap-and-trade schemes for greenhouse gases. Perhaps we also need one to limit the amount of fertiliser runoff onto the Great Barrier Reef.
Eating meat means greenhouse emissions. But the emissions from growing crops may have been underestimated, meaning that a climate-friendly diet isn’t as straightforward as simply going vegetarian.
The latest Great Barrier Reef report shows some improvements to water quality over the past five years, but there’s still a lot to do on one particular problem: nitrogen.
Channing Arndt, United Nations University; James Thurlow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) et Karl Pauw, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Malawi’s large-scale subsidy for farmers has resulted in higher maize production, lower food prices and higher wages. But this has come at significant costs.
Carbon dioxide is the “face” of the greenhouse gases, but nitrous oxide (N2O) merits its own spotlight. The same “laughing gas” once used by dentists as an anaesthetic and used today by people looking…
Africa will be able to feed itself in the next 15 years. That’s one of the big “bets on the future” that Bill and Melinda Gates have made in their foundation’s latest annual letter. Helped by other breakthroughs…
The critical links between water, sanitation, and our global consumption of energy – the “energy-water nexus” are more obvious than ever before. But how many of us will take direct action at the most basic…
Researchers have developed a method to produce ammonia simply from air and water. Not only is it more energy efficient than the century-old Haber-Bosch process currently in use all over the world, but…
If Earth were like a human body, large animals might be its arteries, moving nutrients from where they’re abundant to where they’re needed. Currently the planet has large regions where life is limited…
Each year more than 1 million tonnes of mineral nitrogen fertiliser is applied to arable and grass crops in the UK. This pollutes waterways through nitrate run-off and the atmosphere from the release of…