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Fertiliser use and soil carbon sequestration: trade-offs and opportunities

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Title Fertiliser use and soil carbon sequestration: trade-offs and opportunities
 
Creator Hijbeek, Renske
Loon, Marloes P. van
Ittersum, Martin K. van
 
Subject climate change
food security
agriculture
fertilizers
soil organic carbon
soil
greenhouse gas emissions
 
Description Current initiatives to store carbon in soils as a measure to mitigate climate change are gaining momentum. Agriculture plays an important role in soil carbon initiatives, as almost 40% of the world’s soils are currently used as cropland and grassland. Thus, a major research and policy question is how different agricultural management practices affect soil carbon sequestration. This working paper focuses on the impact of mineral fertiliser use on soil carbon sequestration, including synergies with the use of organic inputs (for example crop residues, animal manure) and trade-offs with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Findings from scientific literature show that fertiliser use contributes to soil carbon sequestration in agriculture by increasing biomass production and by improving carbon:nitrogen (C:N) ratios of residues returned to the field. The use of mineral fertiliser can also support the maintenance of carbon stocks in non-agricultural land if improved fertility on agricultural land reduces demand for land conversion. Combining organic inputs with mineral fertiliser seems most promising to sequester carbon in agricultural soils. Increasing nutrient inputs (either organic or mineral fertilisers) may however lead to trade-offs with GHG emissions such as N2O. Improving the agronomic nitrogen use efficiency of nutrient inputs (i.e., additional grain yield per kg N applied) can alleviate this trade-off. While soil carbon sequestration can benefit soil fertility under some conditions and compensate for some GHG emissions related to agriculture (first assessments indicate up to 25% of the emissions related to crop production, depending on region and cropping system), it seems unlikely it can compensate for GHG emissions from other economic sectors. If soil carbon sequestration is a policy objective, priorities should be areas with higher storage potential (wetter and colder climates) and/or regions where synergies with soil fertility and food security are likely to occur (for example farming systems in tropical regions, on sandy soils and/or when cultivating more specialized crops). However, regions with the highest storage potential most likely do not overlap with regions where the largest benefits for soil fertility and food security occur.
 
Date 2019-05-03
2019-05-03T15:56:26Z
2019-05-03T15:56:26Z
 
Type Working Paper
 
Identifier Hijbeek R, van Loon MP, van Ittersum MK. 2019. Fertiliser use and soil carbon sequestration: opportunities and trade-offs. CCAFS Working Paper No. 264. Wageningen, the Netherlands: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/101190
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Language en
 
Relation CCAFS Working Paper
 
Rights CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0
Open Access
 
Format application/pdf
 
Publisher CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security