An integrated approach to a Nitrogen
Use Efficiency indicator along the food
chain
Jan Willem Erisman
Louis Bolk Institute, the Netherlands,
Member EU Nitrogen Expert Panel
With contributions from: Albert Bleeker, Jim
Galloway, Brooke Atwell & Alley Leach
Outline
Why nitrogen?
Why a Nitrogen Use Efficiency indicator for
the food chain?
Changes in food and protein consumption
Definition and examples of NUE
Potential interventions
Next steps
Food production contributes to
the exceedance of Planetary
boundaries
•
Rockström et al. 2009
Erisman et al. (2015)
07/04/15
4
The Nitrogen Dilemma
Benefits:
• Necessary for life
• Synthetic nitrogen
fertilizer supports
food supply
Drawbacks:
• Excess reactive
nitrogen negatively
affects environmental
and human health
Challenge:
Optimizing the use of nitrogen,
while minimizing the negative impacts
Proposals for NUE targets
Proposed an aspirational goal of
20% increase in crop NUE and
full-chain NUE by 2020
Proposed a 30% increase in
crop NUE by 2030, relative to
current levels in countries with
low efficiency
A full-chain Nitrogen Use
Efficiency Indicator (NUE-FC)
NUE has been proposed as an indicator for assessing progress
in achieving the new Sustainable Development Goals
A NUE indicator at farm level has been defined as the Noutput/N-input ratio.
Criteria have been set for a ‘healthy NUE’ per system: on the
ratio, a maximum output-input difference and a maximum
input.
A full food chain NUE provides an indicator for the efficiency
of N from the production to the consumer and all the
intermediate steps and couples production to consumption
(diets)
Simple representation
of the food chain
N creation
N utilization
(fertilizer, BNF) and recycling
N conservation N production
N conservation N loss
and N loss
transport/energy and N loss
Why a NUE for the food chain?
Help optimize nitrogen use in relation to diets
Help reduce nitrogen losses in the food chain
Identify areas for improvement
Support policy development and evaluation
(monitoring)
Forms the basis for a labeling system and compare
different products on ‘N-performance’ and raise
public awareness
Measure and improve systems
Changes in food and protein
consumption: Processing
American chicken sales
1961
1970
1980
1990
Whole
carcass
85%
70
50
18
Retailed as
parts
13
26
40
56
processing
3
4
10
26
1980: introduction of Chicken McNuggets
Smil, 2013
Changes in food and protein
consumption: Supply chain
Consumers
Retailers
Traders
Processors
Primary producers
Increased protein consumption
66% due to increase in population, 34% due to per capita increased
consumption (Europe: 50-50)
Change in diets
Estimated increase in protein
consumption for 2011 and 2050
Galloway et al. in prep.
Definition of NUE:
output/input
Biological
N fixation
New N input
Nitrogen Use Efficiency, NUE:
NUE = N output/New N input
New N input:
- Fertilizer
- BNF
- Natural deposition
N consumption (N output)
Some literature values
Norway: 10% (Bleken and Bakken, 1997)
Germany: 10% (Isermann and Isermann, 1998)
USA: 15% and 5% animal protein (Howarth et al. 2002)
East Asia: large range (Shindo et al. 2003; 2006)
Global: 4-12% (Galloway and Cowling, 2002)
Europe: 14% (Westhoek et al. 2014)
China: 9% (Ma et al., 2012)
Nitrogen Use Efficiency in
the whole food chain
Data: FAOSTAT
Data availability, NUE
(EU N-flows)
Nitrogen Use
Efficiency, NUE:
NUE = N
output/New N
input
NUE = 2,5/12
NUE = 21%
ENA, 2011; Westhoek et al. 2014)
Differences between
member states
Uncorrected for import and export, BNF and for manure
Data availability, NUE
(Dutch N-flows)
N in kton
Blue = reasonable certain
Purple = estimates or values resulting from the balance of the black box
NUE Netherlands
Figure immediately shows the complexity of calculating NUE
when the livestock cycle is included and food is heavily
imported or exported
The NUEFC in the Netherlands for 2005 was 17% for human
consumption where the consumption was 70 Kton N in the
Netherlands and 40 Kton net export and the total input
includes fertilizer (280), import feed (350) and BNF (15)
Food processing has an efficiency for human consumption of
48%
Production of food products has an efficiency of 36%
Improved efficiency in the
Netherlands
Alternative approaches
N-Footprint:
Life Cycle Analysis
Environmental
Impact assessment
N budget
A nitrogen footprint is
the amount of reactive
nitrogen released to the
environment as a result of
an entity’s resource
consumption
www.N-print.org
Usage: public awareness
Goal:
Inform consumer choices with a
clear and comprehensive
environmental impact food label
Potential interventions: Aim for
a larger share of vegetal protein
Improve NUE
(farmer)
improve recycling improve recycling
(processor)
(retailer)
change diets
(consumer)
improve recycling
(consumer)
Next steps
Link NUE at the farm scale to NUEFC
Further develop methodology in relation to different
steps in the food chain and different inputs, including
import and export
Better assess NUE for processing
Data needs, accuracy and accessibility
Show variation in NUEFC and its causes
Demonstrate usage for policy development and
monitor progress (examples)
Summary “EU NEUFC”
The EU Nitrogen Expert Panel aims to contribute to improving
NUE in food systems in Europe;
The food chain is diverse and data availability is limited;
There is a large variation in NUEFC in Europe;
Two main parts can be distinguished: production and
processing;
There is great potential to use NUEFC to understand and
improve the efficiency in the food chain;
The challenge is to derive easy-to-use indicators for whole
food systems (and also for farms) to help support policy
development and monitor progress (e.g. SDGs).
Thank you for your attention!
Jan Willem Erisman
[email protected]
www.louisbolk.org