Publish at November 02 2022 Updated November 02 2022
More than half a century ago, a revolution changed the agricultural world. Previously, it was necessary to increase the number of hectares cultivated and as the population grew. Since the 1960s, this is no longer necessary. The growing society is fed without the need for more farms. This is due to the creation of ammonia and synthetic fertilizers.
First, let's recall the nitrogen cycle essential to plants. Indeed, we know that plants need water, light and nutrients. One of the most important in the growth is nitrogen. This is easily created in a natural environment. Living species die or defecate on the ground. Compounds enter under the ground and become nitrate which feeds the flora. As for leguminous plants, they are the only ones able to take nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil. In the past, farms grew legumes to feed the animals, which offered nitrogen to the soil with their excrements. Except that fertilizers have made it possible to no longer have this dual activity.
Now, all you have to do is sprinkle fields with fertilizer so that grains and vegetables grow. Except that they can't absorb it all. A big part ends up in the water, aquatic environments and the air. This causes pollution that has led to some incidents in France in recent decades.
Organic agriculture does not use it and it represents only 8% of the European exploitation. The solutions are there with agroforestry, association cropping (a cereal and a legume growing together), shoot rotation and also the presence of livestock.
Certainly, the yields are a bit lower than the traditional method but much less polluting. In addition, the combination farming would only decrease productivity by 9%. This makes biogeochemist Gilles Billen say that Europe could totally continue to feed itself and remove chemical fertilizers by 2050 by adopting these approaches. The population will have to reduce its consumption of animal products to help.
Time: 9min47
Picture credit: en.depositphotos.com
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