Agriculture needs to use chemical fertilizer if the industry is to produce enough food for a world population expected to be 9 billion by 2050. However, with climate change action dominating government debates around the world, farmers are under huge pressure to reduce their use of chemical fertilizers. Fortunately, several companies are looking for solutions to help cut farm use of chemical fertilizer while maintaining crop yields.
As the International Agricultural Fair is currently taking place in Paris, we are highlighting technological solutions that combine adaptation to climate change, reduction of carbon emissions, and increase in yields.
Nitrogen-based fertilizers are widely used by the agriculture industry, but their use, and their manufacturing process, are some of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
With technology advancing, there are several different options for farmers to cut the use of fertilizers while still maintaining crop yields. There are also some options coming to light of how to produce nitrogen, without the heavy emissions baggage. We have chosen 2 companies whose solutions for farmers go in this direction.
Nitrogen From Lightening With Nitricity
American startup Nitricity is on a quest to produce nitrogen fertilizer by harnessing the power of lightning using just air, water, and electricity.
Nitricity was founded in 2018 by a team of graduate students from Stanford University in California. Nicolas Pinkowski is now the CEO and Joshua McEnaney the CTO. Jay Schwalbe serves as CSO. They have already successfully raised millions of dollars with several funding rounds. The company is now scaling its technology to provide regionalized, climate-smart nitrate fertilizer production.
Even though Nitrogen is the dominant element in the atmosphere, many chemical processes must be taken for it to be available as a fertilizer.
The team found that lightning can naturally break up atmospheric nitrogen during a thunderstorm, and subsequent rain transports it to the soil as plant-soluble nitrates. The company then developed its non-thermal plasma reactor technology, using electricity to create artificial lightning and emulate the natural process to fix nitrogen which has already worked successfully in several trials.
According to Joshua McEnaney:
“This electrified technology provides fertilizser in a climate-smart nitrate form, designed for efficient application, allowing it to address greenhouse gas emissions beyond ammonia-based technologies. This is an opportunity to attack not just the one to two percent of global GHG emissions in the production, but the additional 5% of GHG emissions in the application by mitigating nitrous oxide formation.”
One of the trials was with Salinas Valley farmers, which supply Chipotle Mexican Grill. For Jack Hartung, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, of Chipotle, Nitricity’s pursuit of a product innovation has environmental benefits that are complementary to Chipotle’s approach to Food With Integrity.
“Fertilizers have experienced steep price increases in recent years due to supply chain issues, fossil fuel price volatility, and rising distribution costs. Nitricity’s fertilizer offering not only has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint of the fertilizer industry, but it can be a cost-effective solution for growers in our supply chain.”
Tow and Fert Tech With Metalform
In a bid to allow farmers to reduce the amount of granular fertilizer they use, a New Zealand company, Metalform, has developed a range of machines that spread liquid fertilizer.
The machines developed by Metalform called Tow and Fert, dissolve the granules in water and spray this on the crops, cutting the overall granular fertilizer quantities used.
While the company has been developing fertilizer equipment since the 1970s, it was during the late 2000s that it noticed a trend happening across New Zealand farms regarding fine particle fertilizer application. Metalform recognized the science around the efficiency of fine particulates in comparison to large granules and decided to develop something available to all farmers to own and use.
According to Tim Henman, international sales manager of Metalform,
“The advantage is around the fertilizer efficiency. We haven’t reinvented any science but rather developed a tool that dissolves urea in cold water quickly. Foliar application of Nitrogen has a much higher NRE (Nitrogen Response Efficiency) in comparison to granular. Customers are experiencing a reduction of nitrogen use by up to 50% without compromising dry matter growth. Our machines hold insoluble fine particle products in suspension and apply them without any blockages or issues like a normal boom sprayer can experience. We also can mix multiple products at the same time to cut down on application passes. These include N, P, K, S, humates, molasses, seeds, selective herbicides, and any micronutrient you may need.”
There are currently five machines in the Tow and Fert range stemming from the Multi 500 designed for use with an ATV up to the Multi 4000 with a 4,000-liter capacity for larger farms.
Metalform is currently developing a bigger machine with a 36-meter working width for crop farmers.
