Stephanie Ogburn

Society

To reduce nitrogen pollution, we need new farm policies

Taken together, California’s dairy cows produce more than 100,000 tons of manure every day. Rocha and his fellow dairy farmers put all those cow pies to good use—as fertilizer for the fields that grow the corn that feeds their herds. It’s a perfect closed-loop system, except for one big problem: nitrogen.

February 22, 2010

Society

The dark side of nitrogen

Modern agriculture — and, consequently, present-day human society — depends on the widespread availability of cheap nitrogen fertilizer, the ingredient that makes our high-yielding food system possible. But the industrialization of this synthetic nitrogen fertilizer has come with costs.

February 6, 2010

Leave a Comment