Roadmap for meeting Europe’s Farm to Fork Strategy

Fertilizers provide crops with the nutrients they need to grow. But excess amounts of nutrients can also be a source of air, soil and water pollution. The Farm to Fork Strategy therefore has an aspirational goal of reducing nutrient losses by 50 percent by 2030.

Farmers can reduce nutrient losses by improving nutrient use efficiency, as these are two sides of the same coin. With our extensive agronomic knowledge and portfolio of solutions, Yara can help farmers increase nutrient use efficiency. Farmers can do this by using precision and digital farming tools and by adopting optimal nutrient management practices, applying the right fertilizer at the right time, in the right dose and at the right place.

By using best practices and solutions that exist today, European farmers can already:

• Improve nutrient use efficiency by 20 percent
• Increase yields and income by 5 to 7 percent
• Reduce their carbon footprint related to mineral fertilization by up to 20 percent

This example assumes that mineral fertilizers are produced using the best available technology and relates to major crops (e.g. cereals) grown in major EU countries.

Yara shares the Farm to Fork ambition of ensuring long-term soil fertility. Soil health is vital for robust crops and sustainable agriculture. If nutrients removed from the soil at harvest are not replaced, then soil health will decline and can lead to soil degradation.

Applying adequate amounts of organic biomass and required nutrients, in the form of organic or mineral fertilizers, boosts crop growth and improves soil organic matter content and soil carbon sequestration. Yara helps improve soil health through:

• Crop nutrition: We provide farmers with fertilizers containing all required macro- and micronutrients, tailored to different crops and conditions.
• Research and development: We’ve conducted research on soil health for more than 60 years with a strong focus on long-term trials. Analysis of more than 100 long-term fertilizer trials shows that fertilized land has a higher soil organic matter content than unfertilized land.
• Soil health analytics: Yara’s Analytical Services provide farmers with soil analysis, covering chemical, physical and biological indicators of soil health.
• Digital farming: Our precision farming tools support farmers with improved management practices that result in balanced crop nutrition.

An example of how Yara supports carbon sequestration is through the newly launched Agoro Carbon Alliance, which leverages Yara’s deep agronomic knowledge. Farmers can earn additional revenue from positive climate action by producing Farm Carbon Credits or climate-smart certified crops. The European Commission plans to launch a carbon farming initiative this year.

Helping food systems in Europe mitigate and adapt to climate change is an important aspect of Farm to Fork and the Green Deal. We work to reduce the carbon footprint of fertilizers both during production and in the field.

The nitrate-based fertilizers we produce have considerably lower carbon footprints due to the nitrous oxide (N₂O) abatement technology Yara has installed compared to producers who don’t use this technology. Yara’s nitrate-based products have carbon footprints that are 50 to 60 percent lower* compared to available regional averages (i.e. in Russia, China, Americas, Oceania, Middle East and Africa).

In 2023, Yara will be able to provide nitrate-based fossil free fertilizers with a carbon footprint that is further reduced by 80 to 90 percent thanks to the use of renewable energy. Yara and Lantmännen are the first companies to sign a commercial agreement to bring fossil free fertilizers to market. These green fertilizers are crucial for decarbonizing the food chain and offering consumers more sustainable food choices. Instead of using fossil fuels such as natural gas to produce ammonia – the building block of mineral fertilizers – the green fertilizers will be produced with ammonia based on renewable energy. Yara has a portfolio of green ammonia projects, which will be key to producing green fertilizers, in Norway, the Netherlands and Australia, and is working actively to expand its clean ammonia business. 

Yara, with its expertise and solutions, also supports farmers in climate adaptation by helping crops to grow healthier and offset stress conditions, which are becoming more common because of climate change. For example, we‘ve developed a range of biostimulants that make plants more resilient to climate change.

*Source: Hoxha, A. & Christensen, B. (2019). The Carbon Footprint of Fertilizer Production: Regional Reference Values. International Fertiliser Society, Proceedings 805.

The Green Deal sees a need for scaling up and promoting circular business models and has set an aspirational goal of increasing the share of EU farmland under organic farming to 25 percent by 2030. Yara believes the circular economy will change agriculture, requiring a shift in the entire food industry.

Through our strategic partnerships with waste management and food companies such as Veolia, and by leveraging our crop nutrition knowledge, we’re working to find optimal ways to recycle nutrients that would otherwise end up as waste and then process these to produce organic fertilizers.

In September 2021, Yara announced the acquisition of Ecolan, a Finnish producer of recycled fertilizers, our first acquisition in the organic fertilizer segment. This reflects our commitment to play a bigger role in organic farming and in contributing to the circular economy.

Our core competence lies in managing nutrients in the most sustainable and efficient way, whether this is for organic farming or conventional farming. We want to be the leading partner for all farmers, regardless of which farming system they use.

One of the flagship initiatives of the Green Deal – the zero pollution vision for 2050 – is for air, water and soil pollution to be reduced to levels no longer considered harmful to health and natural ecosystems, that respect the boundaries with which our planet can cope, thereby creating a toxic-free environment.

Ammonia emissions from the use of mineral nitrogen fertilizers, which can significantly deteriorate air quality, can be reduced from the outset if farmers choose a different nitrogen form. Replacing all urea-based fertilizers with ammonium nitrate-based products could prevent 63 percent of overall ammonia losses from fertilizer application in Europe. That would not only contribute to reducing nutrient losses (in the form of ammonia), but also contribute to cleaner air in Europe.