People are dependent upon healthy soil, and healthy soil is dependent upon people — that’s our approach to nutrient stewardship.

Soil with the right mix of nutrients plays a critical role in feeding 7 billion people around the world. With the world’s population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, food security will require boosting agricultural production — or yield per acre — through farmers’ effective use of crop nutrients. By effective, we mean applying fertilizer in the most efficient manner possible to maximize harvests, while minimizing negative impacts on air and water quality. Achieving that balance, however, is not always easy for farmers.

In North America, our internal agronomy experts work closely with our wholesale customers to advise them on best practices to share with their farmer customers. In the U.K., we work directly with farmers, offering soil analysis, fertilizer planning and other services. In both cases, we are committed to effective nutrient stewardship through the entire lifecycle of our products, from their manufacture to their end use by farmers. This commitment involves a multidimensional approach, and we are pursuing multiple programs to unlock the full potential of nutrients to maximize agricultural productivity in an environ-mentally responsible manner.

4R Nutrient Stewardship

Properly used, fertilizers support soil health by replacing essential nutrients removed in harvested crops, improving soil microbial activity and helping maintain soil organic matter. As a partner in the industry’s 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program, we encourage farmers to use the right fertilizer, at the right rate, at the right time, and in the right place to maximize nutrient benefits and prevent potentially detrimental impacts. These practices enable farmers to produce more food while helping to reduce soil erosion, nutrient runoff, air emissions and the amount of energy used per harvested unit of farm production.

In early 2016, we joined with The Nature Conservancy to further advance these sustainable agricultural practices in Iowa. A substantial grant from CF will fund a “4R Plus” campaign to empower Iowa farmers with tools to implement various conservation practices, including the 4R fertilizer application principles, cover crops, bioreactors and oxbow wetlands.¹

¹ Oxbow wetlands, which can either be natural or man-made,originate as curves in rivers that are eventually separated as the river finds a shorter, more direct route.

With the grant from CF, The Nature Conservancy will partner and work closely with a wide range of stakeholders – including fertilizer manufacturers and retailers, government, academics, agriculture groups and farmers – to advance the overall goal of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy – a 45 percent reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into the state’s waters. The Nature Conservancy and other agricultural stakeholders have long provided on-the-ground technical assistance to Iowa farmers and partners to implement in-field, edge-of-field and in-stream conservation practices. The CF grant will enable The Nature Conservancy and its partners to achieve a more significant and lasting impact by developing a campaign to reach the 90,000 farmers influencing 23 million acres of row crops statewide, while building a sustainable agriculture blueprint that can be applied to other states through The Nature Conservancy’s North America Agriculture and Upper Mississippi River Basin programs.

Field To Market^®

During the past year, we’ve also extended our support to Field To Market^®: a diverse group of grower organizations; agribusinesses; food, beverage, restaurant and retail companies; conservation groups; universities; and public sector partners focused on defining, measuring and advancing the sustainability of food, fiber and fuel production. The organization offers a Fieldprint^® calculator that estimates field-level performance on sustainability indicators such as land use, conservation, soil carbon, irrigation water use, water quality, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Growers can use the calculator to understand how management choices affect sustainability and overall profitability.

U.K. Soil Services

Our business model in the U.K. creates additional opportunities to promote the use of best practices for soil health. CF Fertilisers UK Limited offers several programs to help farmers determine the right amount of the right fertilizer to apply at the right time and in the right place to achieve the best crop while limiting environmental impact. Our N-Min^® Service is a patented soil nitrogen analysis service that can improve farm profitability, provide evidence of good practices and compliance, and benefit the environment. The service includes N-Min^® tests on provided soil samples for both soil mineral nitrogen and additional available nitrogen, and N-Calc^®, which provides a fertilizer plan to achieve targeted yields. We also offer a nutrient management software, EnCompass^®, which produces recommendations and the documentation needed to record good practice and regulatory compliance.

Beyond the Farm

Beyond agriculture, our products also are used in several industrial applications that help to reduce emissions. In the U.K., for example, there are limits to the amount of nitrogen oxide (NOx) that power plants, cement manufacturers, waste incinerators, refineries, and other industries are allowed to emit. In order to control these emissions, we supply an ammonia reagent to convert these damaging NOx gases to nitrogen and water. Additionally, we sell nitric acid for use in the manufacture of building insulation, which throughout its lifecycle saves 233 times the emissions used in its manufacturing. Our chemical customers also buy our carbon fiber for wind turbines, which produce six times the energy that we put into the production of the fibers. In the U.S., we continue to be the largest producer of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), which is used to control emissions from commercial vehicles, power plants and other sources.