Focus on fertilizer efficiency
Farm and Ranch August 17, 2009 Legislation in Congress to remove the word “navigable” from the Clean Water Act is of concern to agriculture. Ford West, President of the Fertilizer Institute, the trade organization of the fertilizer industry, says removing the word “navigable” would give the federal government regulatory control over all water down to mud puddles. Given the potential for runoff from agricultural land, West says changing the Clean Water Act is an issue for his industry. West: ”I think the issue for our industry is to continue to work with our farmer customers to improve the efficiency in the use of fertilizer. We are working very hard with several agencies to define that efficiency. And we are getting better all the time. Farmers are getting much better all the time with new technology, site specific technology, to improve the efficiency of fertilizer use. We have kind of defined that, what we call the Four R‘s stewardship program, which is make sure you have the right product, applied at the right rate, at the right time, in the right place. And that will improve the efficiency of our product no matter if it is dealing with navigable water or waters. Our goal is to produce more less.” Getting more efficient with fertilizer would also certainly benefit the farmer given where fertilizer prices have been and where they might go in the future. West says limited land and food demand from population growth will necessitate the need for better fertilizer efficiency. I’m Bob Hoff and that’ the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network. ?
