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

07/04/15 4 Erisman et al. (2015)

Challenge:

Optimizing the use of nitrogen, while minimizing the negative impacts

Benefits:

• Necessary for life • Synthetic nitrogen

fertilizer supports food supply

Drawbacks:

• Excess reactive nitrogen negatively affects environmental and human health

The Nitrogen Dilemma

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 N-output/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 N conservation N production N conservation N loss (fertilizer, BNF) and recycling 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

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

American chicken sales

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

New N input

N consumption (N output)

Biological N fixation

Nitrogen Use Efficiency, NUE: NUE = N output/New N input New N input: - Fertilizer - BNF - Natural deposition

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)

ENA, 2011; Westhoek et al. 2014)

Nitrogen Use Efficiency, NUE: NUE = N output/New N input NUE = 2,5/12 NUE = 21%

Differences between member states

Uncorrected for import and export, BNF and for manure

N in kton Blue = reasonable certain

Purple = estimates or values resulting from the balance of the black box

Data availability, NUE (Dutch N-flows)

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

Goal: Inform consumer choices with a clear and comprehensive environmental impact food label

Usage: public awareness

Potential interventions: Aim for a larger share of vegetal protein

Improve NUE improve recycling improve recycling change diets improve recycling (farmer) (processor) (retailer) (consumer) (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 j.erisman@louisbolk.nl www.louisbolk.org