International Fertilizer Association and Proba launch global program for greenhouse gas emissions reduction | World Fertilizer

Published by Emilie Grant, Editorial Assistant World Fertilizer, Tuesday, 15 Oct 24

The International Fertilizer Association (IFA) is partnering with supply chain decarbonisation start-up Proba, to support the development of a new quantification and verification standard to incentivise the wider adoption of enhanced-efficiency fertilizers, specifically focusing on nitrification and urease inhibitors. These inhibitors are compounds that can be added to inorganic or organic fertilizers to reduce nitrogen losses, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as nitrous oxide, by slowing down specific biological processes.

By working with the voluntary carbon market, this program aims to create a mechanism to share costs and de-risk the adoption of inhibitors across the fertilizer supply chain, using insetting strategies to drive both innovation and sustainability.

Fertilizers are an essential agricultural input, supplying critical nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to crops. By enhancing soil fertility and boosting crop yield, they are key to feeding the global population and supporting human nutrition. However, the production and application of nitrogen fertilizers alone contribute to about 1.1 billion t of CO2-equivalent GHG emissions, of which approximately 60% occur as nitrous oxide from agricultural fields.

IFA Project lead, Chief Scientist Achim Dobermann, said: ‘We are excited to begin the first stage of this important project, focused on the downstream supply chain of nitrogen-based fertilizers. We believe that a well-coordinated, science-based, and technology-focused approach led by IFA and its members is more effective and sustainable than a multitude of individual, product-specific protocols. Building on inhibitors as a first use case, this project could evolve towards a broader, sectoral decarbonisation program linked to carbon finance.’

Sijbrand Tieleman, CEO at Proba, said: “There are too many emissions in the agri-food supply chain, with fertilizers contributing around 7% of the total. These emissions are hard to eliminate, but proven technology exists today to reduce them significantly. Inhibitors, for example, can cut GHG emissions by up to 50%, depending on regional, crop, and soil conditions. The challenge now is incentivising the supply chain to adopt this technology at scale. By using an insetting approach – where emissions reductions are accounted for within the supply chain itself – and leveraging carbon finance, we can support farmers in this transition. Downstream participants in the value chain, such as food companies, can report reduced scope 3 emissions and market greener products without fear of greenwashing.”