Agriculture Must Respond To The Pressures of Increasing Population and Regulation
4R nutrient stewardship can help improve agricultural productivity:
- Optimizing nutrient management is simply good business in dealing with fluctuations in prices of fertilizers and other inputs, as well as in process of crops sold.
- Higher crop yields are well documented with better crop and soil management.
- Improved fertilizer efficiency increases the quantity produced per acre for each unit of nutrient applied, without sacrificing yield potential.
4R nutrient stewardship can help minimize impact to the environment:
- Adopting nutrient stewardship contributes to the preservation of natural ecosystems by growing more on less land.
- Retaining nutrients within a field’s boundaries and in the crop rooting zone greatly reduces the amount that is not utilized by plants and thereby escapes into the environment as pollution.