Agromaster Reduces Carbon Footprint

Modern farming brings with it many challenges. There are the obvious challenges of weather, pests, and diseases which can all impact crop yield. But growers now need to consider challenges of a much larger nature too. With the growing understanding of global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions, growers must consider the environmental impact of farming. Global warming is an enormous task to tackle, but innovative crop nutrition solutions from ICL mean there are easy steps every grower can take that can have a significantly improve sustainability.

How Agromaster Improves Crop Carbon Footprint

Experiments have shown that choosing to use Agromaster CRF can reduce a potato crop’s carbon footprint by 11%. For every 10,000 ha of potato crops grown, this carbon footprint reduction is equivalent to driving a typical car 1,496 times around the world, planting 387,664 trees, or the total annual CO₂ emissions of 1,108 European citizens.    

Agromaster Improves Nutrient Use Efficiency

The gradual and managed release of nitrogen from ICL’s Agromaster controlled release fertilizers ensures crops take up more of the applied nitrogen, so less escapes into the environment. By cleverly matching the nutrient release to the crop’s growth rate, Agromaster CRFs improve nutrient use efficiency. In practical terms, growers who use Agromaster can reduce their mineral inputs while achieving the same or even higher yields. In a series of potato trials designed to examine the use of Agromaster instead of either urea or CAN (calcium ammonium nitrate) as the nitrogen source, the same result came up time and again. Using Agromaster, growers can reduce the N application rate by 20% and achieve similar or higher yields. Agromaster increased the NUE and reduced leaching, volatilization, and N₂O emissions compared to other nitrogen sources.

The Relationship Between Nitrogen and Carbon Footprint

So how does a 20% reduction in nitrogen use translate to an 11% reduction in carbon footprint? When using Agromaster, there is a reduction in diesel use thanks to fewer fertilizer applications. But the other significant part of the calculation is the carbon footprint of the nitrogen fertilizer production. Manufacturing nitrogen fertilizers such as urea and CAN produces carbon dioxide, so switching to Agromaster and reducing the total nitrogen application rate means farms use less nitrogen fertilizer, reduce the total carbon footprint of the crop, and achieve the same or higher yield.  

The difference in carbon footprint between potatoes grown with a 100% nitrogen application rate using urea, or an 80% application rate using Agromaster.

Farm and Global Benefits

Globally, nitrogen is the nutrient applied at the highest rate. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports farms used 113,291,696 metric tons of nitrogen in 2020. With numbers like this, it’s clear that any improvement in nitrogen use efficiency can make a big difference. This potential to reduce nitrogen losses with the accompanied benefit of the reduction in CO₂ emissions demonstrates why choosing Agromaster makes sense for the farm and for the planet.