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  • Perspective
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Nitrogen pollution policy beyond the farm

Nature Food volume 1, pages 27–32 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nitrogen is a crucial input to food production and yet its oversupply in many parts of the world contributes to a number of environmental problems. Most policies dedicated to reducing agricultural nitrogen pollution focus on changing farmer behaviour. However, farm-level policies are challenging to implement and farmers are just one of several actors in the agri-food chain. The activities of other actors — from fertilizer manufacturers to wastewater treatment companies — can also impact nitrogen losses at the farm level and beyond. Consequently, policymakers have a broader range of policy options than traditionally thought to address nitrogen pollution from field to fork. Inspired by the concept of full-chain nitrogen use efficiency, this Perspective introduces the major actors common in agri-food chains from a nitrogen standpoint, identifies nitrogen policies that could be targeted towards them and proposes several new criteria to guide ex-ante analysis of the feasibility and design of different policy interventions. Sustainably feeding ten billion people by 2050 will require fundamental changes in the global food system — a broad portfolio of policy options and a framework for how to select them is essential.

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Fig. 1: The agri-food chain from a nitrogen perspective.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    David R. Kanter

  2. Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Fabio Bartolini

  3. Freelance health policy consultant, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Susanna Kugelberg

  4. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy

    Adrian Leip

  5. Wageningen Environmental Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Oene Oenema

  6. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Animal Production and Health Division, Rome, Italy

    Aimable Uwizeye

  7. Animal Production Systems group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands

    Aimable Uwizeye

Authors
  1. David R. Kanter
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  2. Fabio Bartolini
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  3. Susanna Kugelberg
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  4. Adrian Leip
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  5. Oene Oenema
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  6. Aimable Uwizeye
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Contributions

D.R.K. developed the idea and led the writing, with contributions from F.B., S.K., A.L., O.O. and A.U.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David R. Kanter.

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Kanter, D.R., Bartolini, F., Kugelberg, S. et al. Nitrogen pollution policy beyond the farm. Nat Food 1, 27–32 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-019-0001-5

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