Fixing Fertilizer

Agriculture companies are making progress in the search for greener plant foods

- Elizabeth Elkin

Farmers depend on synthetic fertilizers to deliver the high crop yields required to meet global food demand, but that comes at a cost to the environment. Much of fertilizer production relies on natural gas or coal, accounting for just over 2% of the world's climate-warming emissions, and chemical fertilizers contribute to agricultural runoff that damages wildlife. For growers, fertilizer costs can also be wildly unpredictable, because prices are based on the availability of commodities such as nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and gas.

All this has spurred a hunt for alternatives to mineral fertilizers that's starting to achieve results.

Agribusiness heavyweights including Bayer, Corteva and ArcherDaniels-Midland and a crop of startups are closing in on some solutions to reduce the use of conventional fertilizers, including turning to microbes, recycled organic waste and other lower-emission and chemical-free substitutes.