Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

For more than 40 years, the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) has been a source of information on fertilizer, soil fertility, and plant nutrition, and a source of support and technical assistance to the agriculture sector and the fertilizer industry. IFDC is a leading center for the research and development of new fertilizer products and for promoting their rational use by means of agro-economic research to improve soil fertility, increase productivity and production, and improve food security and nutrition around the world with a major focus on developing countries.

The following comments serve as IFDC’s official contributions to the CoCoFe.

IFDC scientists believe the judicious use of fertilizer calls for a holistic approach, starting with good quality fertilizer products, with reduced contaminants, which greatly depends on the source of nutrients, beneficiation of mined feedstock, and the production process. When supplied with good quality products and knowledge on their proper application, farmers’ judicious use of fertilizer can produce sufficient, quality, nutritious, and safe food for a fast-growing population while addressing environmental and human health hazards. With a finite amount of resources — namely land, fertile soil, and fresh water — and in the context of climate change, additional factors to consider for promoting the appropriate use of fertilizer are:

1. Increased investment to revamp agronomic and soil research for resilient agriculture, to innovate nutrient recycling in the context of a circular economy, and to develop the next generation of fertilizer products with lower contaminants, greater efficiency, and balanced nutrients congruent with advances in crop genetics, cropping technologies, and soil conditions.
2. A better policy, legal, and regulatory framework to guarantee not only the best quality fertilizer products but also their distribution and rational use.
3. The revamping of extension services for better technical assistance and training to encourage responsible fertilizer recommendations by the supply chain stakeholders and fertilizer use by farmers.

IFDC scientists and experts in fertilizer production, agronomy, and economics are well-positioned to support the development of the CoCoFe and its implementation through technical assistance and training to fertilizer supply and demand chain stakeholders.

Specific comments on the CoCoFe

Given the global scope of the CoCoFe, do you think the objectives are appropriate? If not, how would you add to them or modify them?

First, IFDC suggests establishing clearer goals for the CoCoFe from which the objectives can emanate. In addition, fewer objectives will help simplify the elaboration of the CoCoFe and perhaps facilitate its adoption.

IFDC also suggests combining the stated objectives 3 and 4 and to consider the following four objectives, which we believe embrace the CoCoFe goals:

1. Increase food production by increasing yields to close the yield gap in developing countries and to supply the increasing global need of more, nutritious, and safer food;
2. Optimize the efficient use of nutrients (organic and inorganic) to maximize benefits of better natural resource conservation (land, soil, and water) and effectively promote sustainable agriculture production systems;
3. Minimize nutrient losses and the accumulation in the soil and in vegetative materials of contaminants and trace elements present in inorganic fertilizer and organic nutrient sources.

Considering the effects of climate change on agriculture, IFDC further suggests adding the following objective:

4. Support the adaptation of crops to imminent environmental changes for more resilient agriculture production systems considering balanced nutrient fertilizer products, nutrient recycling, and carbon sequestration.

In addition, although the CoCoFe is intended to address the use of fertilizer to “minimize environmental and human health impacts from pollutants from fertilizer,” it is necessary to clarify that the CoCoFe approach will only reduce such effects. However, a lot can be done to further reduce the impacts on environment and human health. Research and innovation should aim at improving the beneficiation of mined feedstock and the production processes of fertilizer to eliminate contaminants and non-nutritious trace elements (pathogens, organic and non-desirable chemicals) to enhance fertilizer quality.

What should the scope of the CoCoFe be? Which nutrient input sources should be included; only synthetic fertilizers, or also manure, biosolids, compost, etc.? Should other products such as bio-stimulants, nitrification inhibitors, urease inhibitors, etc., be included as well?

IFDC believes the scope of the CoCoFe should be on promoting the most efficient use of plant nutrients to effectively sustain agricultural production, which embraces inorganic fertilizer and organic nutrient sources. 

Considering the aim of the CoCoFe is “to assist member countries  to design policies and regulatory frameworks for the sustainable use of fertilizers,” and the nature of organic materials — which comprises multiple sources with erratic nutrient content depending on the organic material source — makes it difficult to standardize such materials as a source of nutrients, and therefore regulate it. On the contrary, inorganic nutrient sources/fertilizer, given their physical and chemical characteristics, facilitate standardization and regulation.

However, it is crucial to regulate organic materials (biosolids, compost, etc.) for contaminants and hazardous chemicals (heavy metals, pathogens, toxic organics —including pesticides —etc.). To that end, IFDC suggests developing a subset within the CoCoFe clearly addressing the recycling of organic materials to be used as a source of nutrients for food crops.

Recognizing that organic materials can be a valuable source of nutrients, in the traditional intensive production systems, they should be seen first as soil amendments to improve soil structure and increase microbial activity, water retention, and cationic exchange, among others, all of which facilitate the absorption of nutrients by the plant root; and second, as a source of nutrient supply to the soil and the plants. Nutrient supply from organic materials can be considered a positive externality in the context of a circular economy; therefore, organic materials should be supplementary to inorganic sources, not the main source of nutrients. The exception can be purely organic agricultural systems in which organic materials can be both soil amendments and the main source of nutrients.

With respect to the use of bio-stimulants, nitrification inhibitors, urease inhibitors, etc., they should be part of the discussion and the CoCoFe, since they can help improve nutrient use efficiency and achieve the stated environmental and perhaps human hazards objectives.

Additional comments:

• Although IFDC supports better policy and regulatory framework for the responsible use of fertilizer, it is important to recognize that the regulatory burden from the adoption of the CoCoFe has the potential to impact the cost of supplying and using fertilizer. This has greater implications for developing countries, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, considering that fertilizer production in these countries is almost non-existent, and its use is low to negligible. This is especially true among small-scale agricultural producers, due in part to fertilizers’ relatively high retail price resulting from high transaction costs along the international and domestic supply chains. Therefore, the regulatory burden could hinder the efforts of international donor and government programs to reduce the retail cost of fertilizer.

Therefore, economic analyses may be needed to weigh the impact from the potential burden introduced by the CoCoFe as opposed to the impact of a lax regulatory system that will make countries vulnerable to questionable nutrient content in organic products and to hazardous contaminants and non-nutritious trace elements in inorganic fertilizers and organic products.

• The CoCoFe has the potential to promote the responsible and judicious use of fertilizers if the right audience is brought into the consultation and discussion, and plenty of time is spent in mainstreaming the CoCoFe among the different stakeholders — a process that may take many rounds of discussions at different levels and consequently take several years before the CoCoFe comes to fruition and starts being implemented.

Before I articulate my comments in the following paragraphs, I like to commend FAO for undertaking the development of Code of Conduct on the management of Fertilizers (CoCoFe) and seeking stakeholder inputs. My comments are summarized below.

Fertilizer is a derived demand and its use is determined by several factors including profitability, marketability of produce etc. So COCoFe should be considered in the context of the entire value chain consisting of fertilizer supply, use and output markets. In the management of agricultural system all sources of nutrients (inorganic fertilizers, organic sources, manure and recycle materials) should be considered. So instead of Code of Conduct on the management of Fertilizers the title should be Code of Conduct on the management of Plant Nutrient. This change in title certainly makes the exercise more complex but the outcome would be more useful to the countries and practitioners since there is an upsurge in the use of organic materials and recycle products as a complement to and in some cases substitute for inorganic fertilizers.

In developing the recommendations for nutrient management one should consider the source, rate, placement and time of application based on soil and crop. The soil analyses is vital in determining the nutrient composition of the material and the rate of application not only of primary nutrients but also secondary and micronutrients. Both secondary and micronutrients are becoming more limiting to crop productivity particularly in Africa.

The heavy metal contents in fertilizers, recycled materials and manure need to be addressed from the environment and human health stand point as a part of the Code of Conduct exercise. I have recently done some analyses about the cadmium limits in fertilizers in countries and states. These limits vary widely. The most stringent limits under consideration is in the EU countries. The EU regulation proposes to set a limit of 20 mg Cd/kg of P2O5 in phosphate fertilizers over a time horizon on 12-15 years from current level of ~80 mg Cd/kg P2O5 . This limit is vastly lower than in other areas (Please see the diagram below). The sources cadmium in soils are several including geology of the region, rate of manure application, fertilizer etc. The uptake of cadmium by plants depends on its availability which is influenced by several factors including pH of the soil, the rate and source of organic matter, the available Zinc in the soils. Hence setting the limits for cadmium (and heavy metals) in fertilizers is quite complex and would need analysed in the Code of Conduct exercise.

While the Code of Conduct exercise is very useful and timely, it should lead to the establishment of a permanent structure to act as a clearing house of information for the management of plant nutrients. Such an information system should be 'open source' and the inclusion of information in the database should be peer reviewed.

Hope my comments are useful. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts.

Regards

Amit Roy

Submission from COPA-COGECA.

sustainable use of renewable natural resources - to achieve the target, we have to improve the efficiency of the fertilizers and fertilizer practises by continuous research and developments and innovation. we must take into focus the balanced and targeted fertilization to improve the efficiency. we have to improve the organic of the soil to boost the root and the efficiency of the nutrient uptake the crop.   Solutions - Crop based Balanced Fertilization on soil test based northernfertilizer.org     

See my points below that I can foresee with additional background arguments and facts if needed. This mail can be considered a contribution from the IFDC. (I did note the comments by Porfirio.) You can find the papers mentioned in the below points and other papers on https://ifdc.org/vfrc-reports/.

Innovation in fertilizer design, packaging and delivery

• Emphasizing the use of fertilizers in minimizing externalities puts the responsibility of the problems to the users – i.e. the farmers.
• The industry supports the 4R approach which does exactly that – placing the responsibility on the shoulders of the farmers.
• Yet, investments in fertilizers have been virtually absent over the past decades (Fugli et al., 2011).
• Much (more) gain in reducing nutrient losses from fertilizers can likely be made by taking biological and ecological processes as an entry point in the design and development of (innovative) fertilizers (Bindraban et al., 2015).
• “Innovative fertilizers. There has been virtually no investment in fertilizer research and development over the past five decades. Taking plant physiological and soil processes, rather than chemistry, as a starting point, the redesign of ‘packaging’ and ‘delivery’ nutrients can result in rapid nutrient uptake by plants. Innovative fertilizers – targeted at feeding crops, rather than the soil – would provide multiple benefits, including higher content of multiple nutrients in cereals, the restoration of soil fertility, and increased system resilience and sustainability. (From Save And Grow; FAO, 2016).

Unlocking the multiple public good services from balanced fertilizers (Bindraban et al., 2018)

• We should better unlock the potentials of fertilizers (beyond NPK).
• Yield increase (and environmental side effects) are currently the only drivers in fertilizer use, YET
• The nutritional content of cereals, fruits and vegetables have collapsed over the past 5-6 decades with increasing yield levels but can be revived through micronutrient-containing fertilizers (Dimkpa and Bindraban, 2016) – and with that can contribute to human nutrition and health.
• Balanced micronutrient- containing fertilizers further
  • enhance drought tolerance (Dimkpa et al., 2017) contributing to resilience
  • improve plant health to resist pests and diseases – with that reducing the need for biocides (Servin et al., 2015)
  • increased metabolite production to improve taste and shelf-life (and with that contribute to reducing food waste) (Kendristakis, 2017)
  • suppress specific weed infestations
  • dramatically increases water use efficiency (my slogan “the best irrigation is fertilization” that applied for most areas, especially semi-arid with the initial response to develop irrigation infrastructure rather than improving soil fertility)
  • increases the use efficiency of NPK and reduces losses (Dimkpa et al., 2017)

A Comprehensive Nutrient Assessment to unlock fertilizer benefits (Bindraban et al., 2018)

• Currently there is much work done on N and P, but we miss all the other elements.
• Again – also – emphasis only on yield and externalities
• But look at the other functions that fertilization can contribute to (pls do realize that I am referring to fertilizer use in the context of integrated soil fertility management including organic compounds and amendments).
• We need to engage in a much more promising scope for (innovative) fertilizer products in supporting societal goals and with that to be seen more as a public good rather than simply a commodity from the industry – this view might help to engage multiple actors in pushing for change.
• It would be very important to look in more depth into the pricing mechanism of fertilizers (Hernandez, M.A., M. Torero, 2013).
• It will also be important to consider the contribution of fertilizers in reducing environmental impact from a more comprehensive approach – we will have to take a package of measures simultaneously to reduce the losses within acceptable limits as currently discussed under the Planetary Boundary concept (see our paper Conijn et al., 2018).

I have not gone into the specifics of objectives etc, that have extensively been commented on, but wanted to 1) ensure that the responsibility for action is placed on the right actor and that 2) we introduce the need for innovations, 3) the need for a comprehensive assessment and 4) “Dutch diamond type approach (https://www.government.nl/topics/development-cooperation/development-cooperation-partners-and-partnerships/public-private-partnerships) stakeholder meeting and 5) a societal movement. (Fertilizers are e.g. not on the agendas of NGO’s, nor of many policymakers (often only setting limits to losses rather than imposing regulations to push for innovation (except for recycling now in the EU). We need a collective action with all parties to move the sector.

Hope this helps and can still be incorporated.

Some References:

Prem S. Bindraban, Christian Dimkpa, Scott Angle, Rudy Rabbinge, (2018; in Press). Unlocking the multiple public good services from balanced fertilizers. Food Security.

Bindraban, P.S., Dimkpa, C., Nagarajan, L., Roy, A., Rabbinge, R., 2015. Revisiting Fertilisers and Fertilisation Strategies for Improved Nutrient Uptake by Plants. Biology and Fertility of Soils, Vol. 51, Issue 8, pp 897-911.

Conijn, J.G., P.S. Bindraban, J.J. Schröder, R. Jongschaap, 2018. Can our food system meet food demand within planetary boundaries? Agriculture, Ecosystem and Environment 251: 244-256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2017.06.001

Dimkpa, C., Bindraban, P.S., 2016. Micronutrients fortification for efficient agronomic production. Agronomy for Sustainable Development 36:1-26.

Christian O. Dimkpa, Prem S. Bindraban, Job Fugice, Sampson Agyin-Birikorang, Upendra Singh, Deborah Hellums, 2017. Composite micronutrient nanoparticles and salts decrease drought stress in soybean. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 37:5.

FAO, 2016. Save and Grow in practice maize · rice · wheat. A guide for sustainable cereal production. FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS. Rome, 2016.

Fuglie KO, Heisey PW, King JL, Pray CE, Day-Rubenstein K, Schimmelpfennig D, Wang SL, Karmarkar-Deshmukh R (2011) Research investments and market structure in the food processing, agricultural input, and biofuel industries worldwide. ERR-130 US Dept of Agriculture Econ Res Serv December 2011.

Hernandez, M.A., M. Torero, 2013. Market concentration and pricing behavior in the fertilizer industry: a global approach. Agricultural Economics 44 (2013) 723–734.

Kendristakis, M. (2017). Effect of micronutrients on cucumber postharvest quality. MSc Thesis Report, Horticulture and Product Physiology, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. (student Prem supervised)

Servin, A., Elmer, W., Mukherjee, A., De la Torre-Roche, R., Hamdi, H., White, J.C., Bindraban, P.S., Dimkpa, C., 2015. A review of the use of engineered nanomaterials to suppress plant diseases and enhance crop yield. J. Nanopart. Res. 17:92.

Prem S. Bindraban

Dear colleagues and contributors,

The online consultation for contributions to the Code of Conduct on Fertilizer Management (CoCoFe) is now officially closed. We had close to ninety responses during the Forum and as mentioned before they come from many different stakeholders, including the fertilizer industry, academia, the public sector, research institutions, farmer organizations and many others. It has been very interesting and enlightening to read the variety of responses received and all of them will be considered when drafting the first CoCoFe document. 

Now that the consultation has ended, the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) will lead and oversee the work of producing the CoCoFe. This will include appointing a special Task Force to provide technical and expert advice to the ITPS on various aspects related to the management of fertilizers, as well as to assist the writing team in producing a first-draft CoCoFe over the coming two months. The ITPS will conduct a detailed review of the draft in mid-April 2018.

An open-ended working group will be established to review and finalize the draft CoCoFe in late April 2018. Our member countries will select members of the open-ended working group so as to represent the global regions. The working group will also include representatives from multiple stakeholders including academia, industry and civil society.

The CoCoFe will be submitted to the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) Plenary Assembly on 11-13 June 2018. If endorsed, it will be submitted to the Committee on Agriculture (COAG) in September 2018, and subsequently to FAO Council in December 2018.

We will provide updates and any relevant information on the development of the CoCoFe through the FSN Forum and our other relevant networks, including the GSP, to let you all know how things are progressing.

Again, the ITPS, the GSP and FAO thank everyone that participated in this online discussion and for the excellent quality and highly thoughtful comments and feedback that we received. The feedback will certainly benefit the future Code of Conduct on Fertilizer Management document, as well as achieve its aim to manage nutrients more sustainably in the future for more efficient food production systems with increased food security, and with less impacts on the environment, society and and human health.

Warm regards from,

Debra, Gary, Zineb and Ronald (Facilitators of the consultation) and the Forum support team.

• Land tenure results in land fragmentation and dispute among farmers. It makes fertilizer use among farmers uneconomical due small farm size.
• Fertilizer formulation should be location base. The fertility evaluation of a particular location should be ascertained. Generally, tropical soils are inherently deficient of nitrogen and phosphorus and prone to erosion and leaching which further results to soil degradation.
• Tropical soils are fragile having low depth of organic matter, so organic manure should be included in fertilizer formulation and manufacture (organomineral fertilizer) to improve the soil organic matter.
• Farmers must be trained in the when and how to apply fertilizer. The major constrain in fertilizer use among farmers is distribution and availability to grassroot farmers in Africa.

FAO’s Child Labour in Agriculture Prevention team, Rome, Italy

Regarding the fourth objective that focuses on human health impacts, it is also essential that the Code of Conduct adequately considers the health of all workers, including children.

Today, 71% of all child labour occurs in the agricultural sector. In Africa alone, over 72 million children are engaged in child labour, 32 million of which is hazardous work. Beyond the numbers of children engaged in child labour, many more are also working in agriculture or helping their families on the farm. The prevalence of children engaged in agricultural activities and on farms should be considered when designing responsible systems of fertilizer management.

Depending on the context, fertilizer application has the potential to create hazardous situations of child labour. This may include carrying heavy loads, excessive working hours or manually handling some chemicals that cause irritation. Unfortunately, child labour is often a hidden phenomenon, which is why the promotion of certain production systems and employment initiatives should remain child labour sensitive.

As part of SDG 8.7, it is essential that we focus on child labour prevention in agriculture. Child labour also affects our ability to reach SDGs 1 and 2 on eliminating poverty and hunger; children engaged in child labour risk their healthy development and are less likely to become educated and access gainful, decent employment as youth or adults. They can easily become trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and low productivity with negative repercussions for the development and food security of rural communities.

COCOFe insist on improving soil testing capability for majority of farmers to access that service. Soil testing in developing countries is still expensive to be afforded by small scale producers.

COCOFe should emphasize a need of soil fertility experts to train extension officers (village officers) who are directly in contact with famers. Majority of extension officer’s knowledge on soil fertility and plant nutrition is still low.

The COCOFe insist the use of available materials at farmer’s environment like organic residues, rock phosphates and lime materials. The knowledge of farmers utilizing them is still low, yet farmers cannot afford the industrial imported fertilizer to replenish the lost nutrients in fields.

COCOFe insist the improvement of other knowledge in agriculture like developing high yielding varieties needs to go hand by hand with research on soil fertility. Working close with plant breeders in most cases evaluation of varieties do not consider soil fertility component.

Dear FSN Forum colleagues,

Please kindly find attached WFO written comments to the Code of Conduct for the Management of Fertilizers.

Thank you and best regards,

MARIA GIULIA DE CASTRO

Junior Policy Officer

World Farmers’ Organisation, WFO