Summer is in full swing and our landscape is bright with the lush, green growth so characteristic of Ireland. Is it the rain that does it? The sporadic bouts of sun, offset by rainbows and pots of gold? Is it the cow manure? Or just the god-given fecundity of the Emerald Isle?
Well, mostly it’s copious amounts of synthetic fertiliser.
We Irish are enthusiastic consumers of the stuff, with the result that farmers are being held to ransom by the fertiliser industry. Apparently, there is a lack of competition in Europe’s fertiliser market, so the leading players can manipulate prices, regardless of price movements for the main raw materials. This leads to a situation where farmers, particularly tillage growers, cannot afford the fertiliser price hikes (which are estimated will cost around €70m in total). Fertiliser charges on livestock farms will also be considerably higher.
But the conventional agricultural model demands the use of fertiliser so what choice do farmers have? It is accepted as a necessary evil in farming, along with its BFFs, pesticides and herbicides.
Farmers around the world, however, are bucking against the system and transitioning to future-friendly farming; the use of farming methods - organic, holistic, regenerative - that preserve wildlife and biodiversity, as well as maintaining a healthy, sustainable farming business. And why wouldn’t they, when studies comparing conventional farming with chemical-free methods show that fields without fertiliser consistently outperform those employing the costly input.
So what is fertiliser, what does it do, and how are some farmers doing without it?
To fertilise is to impregnate, to pollinate, to enrich. To make fertile or fruitful. To create the circumstances in which things can grow. Cow poo is an example of a natural fertiliser. Of course, as any avid gardener knows, poo power is not limited to the bovines, with manure from horses, pigs, sheep, chickens, rabbits and birds all containing nutrients in varying quantities which are useful in encouraging strong, lush growth.
We all know where animal poo comes from. (If you don’t, ask a six year old – it’ll make their day).
In contrast, inorganic fertilisers are deliberately manufactured to contain specific quantities of the ingredients considered essential to plant growth, namely Potassium (K), Phosphorus (P) and Nitrogen (N). They are also called synthetic fertilisers, since various chemical treatments are required for their manufacture.
Synthetic fertilisers come in single or multi-nutrient varieties, and some will also have added secondary nutrients (calcium, magnesium and sulfur) and micronutrients (copper, iron, manganese etc).
Comparing synthetically fertilised soil to truly healthy soil is like comparing a child’s drawing of a tree to the real thing. If we could see under the ground, we’d see that chemical fertilisation leaves the ground stark, starved and compacted whereas healthy soil is friable and aerated, pulsing with microorganisms and mycorrhizal activity, loaded with carbon and a wide array of nutrients.
The Soil Food Web. Image Source.
Ground that has been repeatedly treated with synthetic fertilisers becomes depleted of life and structure, creating the absurd situation where the only way to coax out another crop is to add more and more fertiliser.
In The Soil Will Save Us, Kristin Ohlsen describes the depressing inefficacy of this vicious circle.
Conventional agriculture uses about 32 billion pounds of chemical fertilisers every year, but the fertilisers are remarkably inefficient. Much of the phosphorus in chemical fertilisers quickly binds to minerals in the soil and becomes unavailable to the plants. Soil microorganisms have enzymes to make the phosphorus available but they’re often dormant or dead under a chemical regimen. The problems associated with nitrogen uptake are even worse. Without healthy soil biology to convert the nitrogen into a plant-palatable form, up to 50 percent of the nitrogen is lost, washed away with the rain or irrigation water into the groundwater or streams. There, it enriches the waters and causes algal growth, which sucks oxygen out of the water and creates dead zones. The Gulf of Mexico has one of the largest dead zones in the world – about 6,000 square miles near the mouth of the Mississippi – caused by fertiliser run-off.
John Duffy practices regenerative agriculture at An Caora Dubh Farm in Donegal. Regen-Ag, as he calls it, aims to improve the health and fertility of the soil through practices like mob-grazing. In one of his vlogs Duffy describes how a particular field, when managed traditionally, had provided about 3 weeks grazing for a flock of 30 sheep. Under regenerative management, they get about 12 weeks out of it. In a country which recently endured a fodder crisis, with more to come no doubt, these are figures to make anyone sit up and take notice.
Flood-resistance is another benefit of healthy soil. Compacted, ‘dead’ soil is like tarmac; the water just runs off, whereas healthy soil can absorb water like a huge sponge. Here in Ireland, we're experiencing a rise in destructive flood events, so soil-health is something we really need to be thinking about.
Duffy hopes that his farm will be a model for others around the country. Those models are desperately needed, because here in Ireland, we are falling behind in adapting farming methods which are ecologically sound, productive and sustainable.
Instead, the current agriculture model is proving a serious strain on the ecosystem. Over half of rivers, lakes and estuaries are affected by pollution, and according the EPA, agriculture accounts for 53% of this pollution. One of the leading causes of pollution from agriculture is fertiliser runoff from the land. Where excess nutrients from fertilisers end up in rivers, lakes and estuaries, it results in excessive algae and plant growth. The oxygen-content of the water is depleted and aquatic animals die.
There are undoubtedly farmers who don’t care about their chemical run-off or environmental impact, or that their produce contains a chemical load. This is perfectly understandable because there is a huge chunk of the population – we, the consumers – who don’t care about these things either. We like convenience and cheap food and we can’t actually see the pollutants in food and water so farming methods seems irrelevant to us. We don’t care about them.
But for those of us who are paying attention, the use of synthetic fertilisers seems grossly uneconomical, environmentally unsound and hazardous to farmer health.
Amy Winehouse sang that Love is a Losing Game. I’d suggest that chemical farming is even more so.