Now, Adrian Leip, from the EC Joint Research Centre, and colleagues have analysed 144 interventions to reduce N losses in order to check how realistic the EC’s targets are and identify concrete pathways to achieve them. These intervention options were aimed at (a) increasing N use efficiency levels in farming systems, (b) reducing food waste, increasing recycling of waste and improving waste treatment, or (c) reducing the N in human consumption through dietary shifts. First, the authors estimated each intervention’s potential N loss reduction (relative to N flows for the EU agri-food system for the baseline year of 2015). Then, they estimated each intervention’s level of societal appreciation (considering implementation costs, health benefits, benefits for biodiversity, and public costs for overcoming socio-cultural barriers to adopt different diets).
Results revealed that, in 2015, the EU agri-food system produced 2.5 Tg N in food consumed domestically, 1.2 Tg N in industrial crops, and 1.6 Tg N used as pet food or in bio-refineries. In total, 19 Tg of virgin N and an additional 1.0 Tg N released from soil reservoirs were required — indicating a total loss of about 17.1 Tg N (of which 2.6 Tg N was outside the EU). The largest potential to increase N efficiency of the current agri-food systems lies in the livestock sector. The 144 intervention options delivered 5–85% N loss reductions; 12 combinations of interventions considered of medium technological ambition at farm level and dietary shifts were found to be able to reduce N losses by about 50%, 11 of which involved dietary change. These results underscore the need for systemic approaches and diet change.
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