The Climate Benefits of Minimizing Synthetic Fertilizer Use

I’m an unabashed climate optimist. While I fully believe that we are contributing to a warming planet, I see more hope than fear, more progress than failure, and innumerable groundbreaking solutions on the horizon. 

Despite the warmest summer on record, contributing to what is expected to be the hottest year in history, or wildfires scorching ever larger swaths of the west, massive bleaching of coral reefs, or any other number of climate calamities we are increasingly becoming numb to, I believe we can solve these problems with a combination of behavioral change and technology. 

This is a powerful mindset, one we should all embrace going into Climate Week in NYC this week! I’ve dedicated my career to that belief, working in advanced biofuels, then soil science, farm management software and now nutrient efficiency as CEO of Sound Agriculture. 

The common stat that’s batted around is that 25% of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) come from food and agriculture. Of that mix, the production and use of fertilizer is responsible for up to 5% of all GHGs, and is a significant piece of the puzzle to combat climate change. At the same time synthetic nitrogen made from natural gas can be detrimental to soil health and cause massive water quality issues that spread carcinogens in our drinking water and cause kill zones in aquatic environments. 30 – 50% of applied fertilizer never actually gets to the plant where it’s needed, and only 15 – 20% of the applied phosphorus is taken up in the root zone. It’s all incredibly inefficient, despite being necessary (at least the part that gets to the plant) to supercharge the yields of crops that 8 billion people depend on.

For farmers, fertilizer is often a significant pain point. It is expensive, costing almost $200 per acre for corn in the US, and is difficult and dirty to deploy on the field. It’s one of those things that’s been largely static for the last 50+ years and is ripe for change.

Luckily there are a variety of solutions that launched recently, and more on the horizon. Nitrogen stabilizers, which help retain nitrogen for the plant instead of leaching into the waterways and volatilizing it into the air, have been on the market for over a decade and increasingly gaining popularity. More efficient liquid fertilizers are being used in-season instead of the prior fall, significantly reducing the potential of leaching, and a whole new wave of biological solutions that depend on soil health are being launched every year.

Sound Agriculture’s flagship product, SOURCE®, is one of these biological nutrition products that takes a completely new spin on the approach. Instead of being a live microbe, it’s a biochemistry product that gets applied at the same time growers are spraying their fields with other products. At only 1 oz/​acre application, it’s ridiculously low volume but highly effective. Four gallons of our product replaces a semi-truck of nitrogen fertilizer, and over 5 tons of mined phosphorus, which is also a critical macronutrient for plant growth.

The reason the low volume is possible is because SOURCE works as a signaling mechanism, triggering microbes to gather around the root zone and nourish the plant with more nitrogen, phosphorus and micronutrients in exchange for more sugars (this video explains it better). We derived SOURCE from studying a natural chemical already in the root zone called a strigolactone and mimicking it in a cost-effective way. Thus helping restore the natural balance between plants and the soil. This leads to a stronger, healthier plant that yields as much or more, without the same dependence on synthetic nitrogen and mined phosphorus.

This summer SOURCE was on 2M acres of corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat in the US after being on the market just 4 years. Many of those acres were able to significantly reduce their synthetic fertilizer use as a result. Beyond SOURCE, we also see a variety of biologicals helping farmers produce more with less, increasing their savings even more. There are nitrogen-fixing bacteria, humic and fulvic acids, micronutrient products, biostimulants like seaweed extracts, fungal products that extend the root zone, and more. It’s a category worth billions of dollars, growing faster than any other input category in agriculture.

In advance of Climate Week we’ve launched a number of new initiatives beyond SOURCE. BLUEPRINT™ is our second product on the market. It supplies crops with the best arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus we found on the market and synergizes with SOURCE, with the ability to increase yields by another 80% vs. SOURCE’s impact on yield alone. We also created the most aggressive financial incentive for reducing synthetic fertilizers called the Efficient Acre Incentive. This program pays growers $5/​ac for 25 lb reduction of nitrogen and $5/​ac for 25 lb reduction of phosphorus when SOURCE is used to offset that nutrient loss and maintain yield. Finally, we offer a variety of product and yield protection guarantees — up to $100 per acre if yield isn’t maintained.

While it’s great to have all these new technologies and incentives in place, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be utilized or have an impact. Others have come up with great products and offerings only to see them go unutilized. That’s why it’s been incredibly exciting to see all of these things come together and actually get put to use. Let me share a story about one of our customers in the heart of the corn belt who’s entering his second year of using our products — I’m going to call him Scott.

Last growing season, Scott saw the data and was attracted to the science and story behind SOURCE and its uniqueness as an easy-to-handle, simple chemistry solution for better plant nutrition. He purchased the product for 10% of his farm, as he was assured knowing that we’d pay him back if it didn’t provide a return on investment. In truth, he was skeptical of SOURCE’s ability to replace a material portion of his fertilizer, so he only pulled back synthetics on a third of the acres where he applied our product. At the same time, Scott found a program through one of the large ag retailers that would pay him $5/​acre to reduce his nitrogen by 25 lbs per acre, further increasing the return from buying SOURCE for that amount of nutrition instead of traditional nitrogen.

After applying SOURCE he saw a clear difference in his corn and soybeans. Wider stalks and deeper, hardier roots, larger corn cobs with more kernels, and bigger and more pods on his beans. As I’m writing this, Scott is now deep into harvesting, and on the acres where he replaced fertilizer with SOURCE he’s seeing yield either be maintained or increased by over 5 bushels per acre, in line with the healthier plants he saw earlier in the season.

Now as he’s buying for the 2024 growing season. Scott just put in an order for 50% of his farm and will be maximizing the acres he can get from our Efficient Acre Incentive (10k acres), while also taking advantage of a separate $5/​acre incentive program from his retailer to further subsidize the cost of SOURCE. That effectively takes Scott’s cost to zero and gets rid of his downside. And as he told me, when was the last time his fertilizer salesperson gave him a yield guarantee on the expensive nitrogen he’s buying?

In the process, this single farm will reduce their environmental impact by a full kiloton of C02 equivalent GHGs (the same as driving 2.5M miles in a gas-powered vehicle), and significantly improve his soil and groundwater quality for generations to come. Next year, if he sees similar results, Scott plans to use SOURCE on 100% of his farm and double that impact.

These are the sort of examples we hear countless times at Sound. The change isn’t happening overnight, but through a combination of new science-backed technologies, incentives and risk reduction initiatives, we will get there. The $3B allocated to climate smart agriculture from the IRA, carbon prices pushing $80/​ton, carbon inset programs from more and more CPG companies and 45z ethanol incentives coming down the pipe next year will all accelerate these adoption trends further.

There may be a lot of fear and doubt about how long it takes to effectively combat climate change, but I see things changing every day. We are now seeing both the technology and incentives being offered for practice changes that enable farmers to be part of the solution. We’re proud to work with many who are leading the way. I love seeing more growers making money and becoming climate champions, whether they’d use those exact words or not. After all, it’s just good business, and they can be confident that their farm will continue to provide for their family when they hand off the keys to the truck to their sons, daughters and grandchildren.

At Sound Agriculture, this is our vision: A more resilient agriculture system that benefits farmers, consumers and the planet. So over the next few days at Climate Week, instead of getting mired in cynicism and the very real challenges, let’s focus on the solutions and all be climate optimists!