Sustainable fertiliser’s role in regenerative agriculture

Smart use of fertilisers is an essential factor in maintaining soil health and crop yields, meeting the challenges of an accelerating global population

Regenerative agriculture is an evolving, science-based and outcome-focused approach to farming and plays a significant role in safeguarding food security and sustainable nutrition. Central to this approach is the strategic utilisation of fertilisers.

While fertilisers have historically been associated with environmental harm, when strategically integrated within regenerative practices, they can foster soil health and bolster nutrient cycles, ultimately leading to resilient yields and food security.

To explore these issues, Innovation Forum hosted a webinar in partnership with Yara International, to bring together stakeholders in the agri-food industry. The discussion focused on which fertilisers can be employed within a regenerative farming approach and the ecological benefits that a sustainable use of certain fertilizers can help to achieve.

Following here is a summary of the key points, challenges and solutions discussed.

Discussion summary

With global population growth increasing, one of the greatest challenges is food security, whilst reducing GHG emissions. When crops are harvested, vital nutrients (including phosphorus, potassium and calcium, among others) are extracted from soils and if they are not replaced, it will lead to soil degradation and to reduced crop yields.
Improved nutrient management is crucial to replenish soil nutrients that are extracted during harvest and to optimise resources used in agriculture, in order to achieve global food security while mitigating climate change.
Fertilisers, both organic and mineral, play a critical role in replenishing nutrients in the soil. However, their use needs to be optimised to maximise crop yields and minimise environmental impact.
Precision agriculture - applying the right nutrients at the right rate, time, and place - can maximise efficiency and minimise environmental impact.
Yara is developing low carbon footprint fertiliser products, including the use of carbon capture technologies (CCS) and renewable energy-based fertilisers, as well as organic-based fertilisers from different nutrient recovery streams.
There is a lack of common definition for regenerative agriculture. Yara defines this as a systematic, outcome-based approach to adopt the best sustainable farming practices that positively affect nature and climate across five key themes: climate, soil health, resource use, biodiversity, and farmer prosperity.
Engaging and collaborating with relevant supply chain stakeholders, including farmers, food companies, research institutions, and policymakers, is essential to scale up regenerative agriculture practices.
Measuring and monitoring outcomes, especially in terms of nutrient use efficiency and soil health is important to track progress and to report actions. Reporting about biodiversity is challenging today, since the metrics and methodologies are still in development, but will certainly be established in the future.
Ensuring the socioeconomic viability of the transitions to regenerative agriculture for farmers is key, requiring innovative financing and incentive mechanisms.

Balanced nutrient management

It’s a challenge to achieve the right balance of nutrients to optimise crop yields, without causing environmental harm.

Solutions discussed:

Precision agriculture techniques that use digital tools and data-driven decision making, such as variable rate application and sensors, can ensure accurate application of the right nutrients at the right rate, time, and place. This is key to optimising fertiliser application, maximising yields whilst farmers can save money and reduce potential environmental harm.

Organic fertilisers

The available organic fertilisers globally are not sufficient to replace all the nutrients removed during crop harvests. In the short term, scaling the use of organic fertilisers is a challenge. Organic fertilisers are derived from living things including plants, animals and manures.

Solutions discussed:

Using a combination approach of both organic and precisely applied mineral fertilisers can leverage the benefits of each.
Organic-based fertilisers should be applied precisely, which requires the exact indication of their nutrient content. In combination with precisely applied mineral fertilisers, optimal results can be achieved.
Mineral fertilisers play a critical role in bridging the nutrient gap that cannot be covered by organic fertilisers.
As well as organic-based fertilisers, Yara is investing in low carbon fertiliser options such as those produced using renewable energy or carbon capture technologies.
Yara is also offering organic-based fertilisers made from agricultural residues and byproducts, apart from other nutrient recycling streams.

Socioeconomic implications for farmers

On the ground challenges include incentivising farmers to adopt more sustainable practices, addressing data privacy concerns, and finding ways to finance the transition.

Solutions discussed:

Exploring innovative financing and incentive mechanisms to make regenerative agriculture economically viable for farmers is key – this may require upfront investments or financial incentives, maybe based on rewarding systems for the transition towards regenerative practices.

Measurement and monitoring

The lack of global consensus of definitions and comprehensive measurement indictors to assess soil health, biodiversity and other sustainability metrics poses a challenge to track environmental progress as well as to share and compare data globally. Furthermore, it is important that monitoring and evaluation frameworks are designed to consider context-specific and local variations.

Solutions discussed:

There is an opportunity for supply chain actors (farmers, food companies and policymakers) to collaborate, continue dialogues and share knowledge and align efforts to establish robust monitoring frameworks, definitions and sustainability indicators.
On-farm digital tools present an opportunity to develop efficient data collection methods and synthesise information to inform decision-making and optimise farming practices.
There are no universally accepted indicators of soil health yet, because the challenges for soils are different according to the soil types and climate conditions across the globe. Consequently, the selection of soil health indicators should be context-specific to address the relevant soil health issues per location.

Webinar panel

Marina Ettl, director for funded projects and regenerative agriculture business intelligence, Yara International
Jan Willem Sepers, senior director agriculture EMEA, Lamb Weston
Paz Panunzio Moscoso, research scientist sustainability and strategic research, Yara International
Moderator: Tanya Richard, chief operating officer and head of stakeholder engagement, Innovation Forum

Supporting links and content:

To learn more about Yara’s approach to regenerative agriculture you can see a full information deck here, or on their website here and here.
For more information on the long-term trials: 2010 research, 2012 research, 2022 research.