An integrated approach to nutriënt availability and use efficiency

Every year more than €3 thousand million is lost due to soil degradation. Soil fertility decline that comes with soil degradation limits food production and economic growth. To unlock the potential of soils, nutrients need to be used more efficiently. This holds in particular for P, because it has the lowest nutrient use efficiency of all nutrients required by crops. Although several pathways of change have been proposed already to increase the productive capacity of soils, new approaches are necessary to cope with the current trends of globalization, urbanization, growing resource scarcity and climate change. Such approaches should be based on Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM), which combines the application of both mineral fertilisers and organic manures with other aspects of agronomic management (seed, crop protection, soil and water management).