UN Division for Sustainable Development

Case Study Detail Record

Organization type:	Government

Name of Ministry/Agency:	Department of State

Country:	United States of America

Name of Focal Point:	Hiram Larew

Initiative Title:	Nutrient Management in Agriculture to Increase Productivity and Protect the Environment

Internet links:	http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/TECHNICAL/NRI/ceap http://store.swcs.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=c_Products.viewProduct&catID=574&productID=9630

Scope:	Global

Status:	Ongoing

Timeframe:	Start: End:

Lead Institution:	U.S. Department of Agriculture

Stakeholders/Partners:	Farmers, U.S. Land-Grant Universities

Relevent issues:	- Food security and sustainable agriculture - Enhancing agricultural productivity through adequate and sustainable inputs - Community-based and indigenous approaches to food production - Diversifying agricultural production systems - Agrarian reform - Environmentally sound pest control - Water management in agriculture - Early warning systems for monitoring food supply and demand - Access to financing, investments or markets - Capacity building - Technology transfer - Research development

Objectives/Challenges:

The use of fertilizers and manures to enhance soil productivity can greatly increase the productivity of agriculture. Fertilizers have been crucial to the increases in productivity achieved by the green revolution, without which many more people would go hungry than do today. However, the loss of the nutrients in fertilizer and manures can lead to the pollution of water bodies, degrade wildlife habitat, and reduce biodiversity. The U.S. has invested considerable effort to identifying farming practices and solutions to address that problem. In 2007, the research agencies in USDA and the USDA-funded research at Land Grant Universities had a total 145 research projects concerning nitrogen management in various types of farming systems.

Lessons Learned:

Research has provided information on many practices that can be applied to greatly reduce the impacts of fertilizers and manures used in agriculture. There are two challenges to putting them into practice. First, an understanding of the practice, how to implement a practice, and knowing for which farming systems the practice will be effective must be available to the farmer. Second, it is necessary to establish policies, programs, and incentives that will get a high rate of adoption of appropriate practices by farmers.

Summary:

Key Results: Research has identified many practices that can achieve significant reductions of nutrient loss from farms. A few examples follow, but it should be realized that different practices may only be effective for certain farming systems and conditions.

• No till agriculture can reduce loss of nitrogen and phosphorus from wheat fields by about 70%

• Controlled drainage on fields that have drainage ditches or tiles can reduce nitrogen runoff by about 45%

• Fertilizer budgets to prevent over application can reduce nitrogen loss by about 25% and phosphorus loss by about 15%

• Vegetated buffer zones adjacent to waterways to process field runoff can have major benefits, with reductions of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff often above 75%

• Constructed wetlands can reduce nitrogen, on average, by about 50%

• Livestock exclusion from streams can reduce in-stream concentrations of phosphorus by about 80% and nitrogen by about 50%.