Reducing nitrogen nutrition of plants to withstand the greenhouse effect: assessing the impact on agriculture

Abstract

One way of reducing the anthropogenic impact on the climate is to limit the introduction of nitrogen into the soil with mineral fertilizers. This will reduce the release of volatile nitrogen compounds into the atmosphere, which have a strong greenhouse effect. A scenario analysis using the VIAPI model (an economic-mathematical model of a partial equilibrium of the wholesale agricultural markets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation), is used to assess the changes in these markets and in the country’s agriculture as a whole in the case of reduced introduction of nitrogen into the soil with mineral fertilizers. Scenarios were investigated for a 10% reduction in national application at actual fertilizer efficiency levels and a 50% increase in efficiency to the level of best regional practices. It is shown that, in general, agriculture is able to adapt to these scenarios, reducing the gross agricultural production by only 2.09% or 2.85%, respectively to the baseline scenario (which does not include nitrogen application restrictions). Adaptation takes place due to changing the sectoral structure in favor of open ground vegetable production and meet cattle breeding, changing territorial structure in favor of the regions of the corresponding specialization. The decrease in nitrogen application is achieved by relatively few federal subjects, while in the rest it remains the same. If the reduction in the introduction of nitrogen into the soil with mineral fertilizers is accompanied by the efficiency growth, there is an opportunity to avoid any damage to agricultural production, both sectorally and territorially. This opportunity is conditioned by investments and, possibly, state support, the feasibility of which is to be studied within the framework of the project approach.