When we, at Fertilizer New Zealand, talk about the urgency of managing nitrogen-fertiliser use, we know we are in good company.

Nitrate losses to the environment were identified as “a key challenge for farming” in the 2004 findings presented by the Parliamentary commissioner for the environment, Morgan Williams, in his report, ‘Growing for Good: Intensive farming, sustainability and the New Zealand environment’. Williams drew on the words of Australian CSIRO researcher Barney Foran to an international grasslands conference in Palmerston North more than a decade previously:
“The biggest challenge at the moment is to produce a vision of why we produce products from grasslands. If we are worried by the energy consumption of our developed economies, then we must develop low-energy, integrated pasture systems that give high-quality products with no downstream pollution effects – a “cradle-to-grave” concept. Continue Reading »