Nitrogen in Food and Climate Change Mitigation

Abstract

The revolution in global food production that nitrogen fertilisers and improved agricultural practices have delivered in the last half century has at least reduced the proportion of hungry or undernourished people in the world — down from a third in the 1960s to less than a quarter today. But population growth and stark inequalities in food supply between rich and poor nations have meant that the absolute number has changed little. Over 800 million people are still classed as under-nourished^1,2, while each year, in the UK and US alone, a mass of food equivalent to the needs of some 80 million people is simply thrown away. Worldwide, each person now consumes about half a tonne of food annually, most of this as cereals, fruit and vegetables, with about a quarter in the form of meat, seafood and dairy produce³. Hidden within this global average are national diets that are driving obesity in their own populations while stripping calories from the already-inadequate food supplies of others. Meat consumption is at the enlarged heart of this global see-saw of feast and famine and, with the high nitrogen intensity of its production⁴, presents a host of risks and opportunities in the battle to avoid dangerous climate change.