Farmers rely on synthetic fertilizers to provide the high crop yields needed to meet global food demand, but at an environmental cost.Much fertilizer production relies on natural gas or coal, and accounts for more than 2% of the world’s climate-warming emissions. Fertilizers help agriculture Runoff that damages wildlife.Fertilizer costs can also be prohibitively high for growers Unpredictable because prices depend on the availability of commodities, including nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and natural gas.
All this has prompted the search for alternatives to mineral fertilizers to start bearing fruit. Agribusiness heavyweights including Bayer, Corteva and Archer-Daniels-Midland, as well as a slew of startups, are approaching some solutions to reducing traditional fertilizer use, including switching to microbes, recycling organic waste and other low-emission and chemical-free replacement of.
