Introduction
Farmers apply fertilisers because they need to. They need to because the nutrients are essential for the crops to produce adequately. What we discuss herein is how organic fertilizer versus chemical fertiliser are used to accomplish this goal. It comes at a time when we are continually increasing in numbers as a human race, and at a time when fertile land is in scarcity. This basically boils down to the most efficient agricultural system, both environmentally and for food production.
By focusing on organic fertiliser – such as compost, animal manure and plant residues – one can also benefit from sustainability principles such as promoting soil health, biodiversity and keeping synthetic inputs to a minimum. Chemical fertiliser, on the other hand, is also a narrowly focused option – but here the power of chemical industry processing is applied to circumstances, whereby fertiliser products and the knowledge of how to apply them help crops to grow.
Compared to organic fertiliser, chemical fertiliser delivers higher nutrient doses, with the benefit of often being able to recoup this chemical investment in the growth in plant weight and yield immediately after application. But how about in the long run? What is the effect on soil fertility and ecosystem health?
Against the backdrop of growing concerns about food security and environmental degradation, the debate over the use of organic as compared with chemical fertilisers has risen in pitch and intensity. Advocates of organic farming assert that organic farming systems increase agricultural resilience, mitigate climate change and protect human health, while backers of chemical fertilisers highlight their ability to increase crop yields to meet growing global population.
In this debate, there is an ever-present push and pull between different agendas and ideologies. This paper will attempt to understand the often conflicting relationships between yield and sustainability using organic and chemical fertilisers, from various research studies and experts’ opinions. It aims to explore the role that fertilisers play in determining the yield and sustainability of agricultural practices, while presenting the merits and pitfalls of using both fertilisers. This paper will provide a more nuanced understanding of the issue at hand in the hope of guiding new agricultural practices for the future.
Comparison of Organic Fertilizer and Chemical Fertilizer
Organic fertiliser and chemical fertiliser represent different paradigms of soil management, each having different compositions, modes of action and environmental impacts. Informed student of the different nuances of organic versus chemical fertiliser is critical to farmers and policymakers alike, not to forget the armchair crowd of consumers of food products that originate from these two management paradigms.
Organic fertiliser derived from natural sources such as compost, animal manure, and bio-based ingredients represents sustainability and environmental stewardship at the farm level. High in organic matter, micro-nutrients and biotic life, organic fertilisers boost soil health and enhance microbial activity, nutrient cycling and soil structure, as well as improve soil moisture-holding capacity for the long term. These measures improve crop sustainability, cut the need for synthetic inputs and reduce the probability of nutrient runoff and resulting pollution of water bodies.
In contrast, chemical fertiliser is an industrial product synthesised artificially to deliver nutrients precisely in the form in which they are demanded by a plant – the three basic elements of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) along with other micronutrients such as zinc, boron, sulphur and molybdenum.
Chemical fertilisers are designed to promote high rates of plant nutrient uptake and are frequently applied in concentrated, controlled quantities so that crops can benefit from the instant greening effect of intensive inputs. This has led to their wide adoption in high-input, intensive agricultural systems and modern farming operations. However, the overuse of chemical fertilisers poses a risk to the environment. For example, excessive applications of chemical fertiliser can result in nutrient imbalances in the soils and lead to degradation with soil acidification and adverse effects on microbiological soil biomass.
Ultimately, the choice between organic and chemical fertilisers boils down to a trade-off between short-term yield and long-term consequences. While chemical fertilisers offer quick returns on investment and high yields, they also impose enormous economic and ecological costs on producers and consumers alike (as well as on human health and the planet), leading to what has been called a ‘fertiliser debt’.
By contrast, although much slower in action, organic fertilisers act to enrich soils, enhance agroecological resilience and biodiversity, and lay the groundwork for abiotic and biotic sustainability in the production of food and agriculture into the global future. Navigating the give-and-take between short-term yield and long-term sustainability necessitates ongoing experimentation and deliberation. We need a more holistic approach that takes more into account – the health of soils, the health of ecosystems, and the health of the people who rely on them long into the future.
Impact on Crop Yield
This debate is not only about the different composition and application means of organic fertiliser and chemical fertiliser, but also about their direct effect on crop yield. There are many researches saying organic fertiliser and chemical fertiliser play different roles in crop yield.
Studies pitting the effects of organic fertiliser against chemical fertiliser on these crops have generally returned mixed findings, reflecting the devilishly complex interactions between soil, nutrients and plant physiology. Chemical fertilisers tend to spike crop yields, and especially so in monocropped plots. But it’s not always a guaranteed route to farm profits in the long term. Organic fertilisers exert a subtler influence on crop yields, based on supporting soil, said Ramaekers, ‘because the mechanisms are more indirect’. They’re focused on measures of soil health, including microbial diversity and long-term nutrient cycling.
Another is the availability of nutrients. The nutrients in chemical fertiliser are directly available and in a dissolved form. This allows for them to be immediately absorbed by plants and actively stimulate growth in the short term. However, because nutrients are immediately available in the fertiliser, they are also immediately available for leaching and reducing the available nutrients in the soil.
This requires fertiliser application to be frequent to maintain productivity. Because nutrients in organic fertiliser are slowly released and are in a stable form, it promotes healthy nutrient cycling and limits the risk of their loss. This gradual release lead to healthier root growth, improved nutrient uptake and tolerance to stress. These combine to give rise to more productive and resilient agriculture systems.
Other than nutrient availability, soil health (and soil condition, as well as the wider agroecological context) also has a major impact on yield. Typical chemical fertilisation tends towards high-input and high-output modes of production which, over time, can diminish soil biology, reduce microbial diversity and degrade soil structure. Organic fertilisers, however, contribute directly to soil health, enrich soil microbial communities and improve soil structure and fertility – and healthy soils, in turn, enable plant root systems to develop, and thereby help plants to take up nutrients efficiently and to retain water – contributing to higher yields and greater resilience under environmental stresses.
In conclusion, chemical fertilisers give a short-term yield but in the long run they harm soil health and ecosystem integrity. Organic fertilisers have an approach that has a long-term view regarding soil health and nutrient cycling through the natural process. Crop production in organic fertilisers is sustainable for all time. This type of fertilisers helps us create sustainable agroecosystem to feed future generations.
In the context where the world needs to feed more people using limited planetary resources, we will need to address methods that create branching yields and resilience. In my opinion, the choice between organic and chemical fertilisers is really important. Using chemical fertilisers might give a short-term yield but Organic fertilisers have an approach that has a long-term view regarding soil health and nutrient cycling through the natural process.
Sustainability Considerations
Amid the pressing challenges of climate change, soil depletion and water scarcity, organic fertiliser, rather than chemical fertiliser, will play a more crucial role in ecological agriculture, including soil health, water quality and ecosystem stability.
Above all, organic fertilisers are environmentally superior to chemical fertilisers. Whether it be natural inputs and long-term soil management, as in the customs of indigenous and peasant seedsavers and pastoralists, or more deliberate additions of compost and biological amendments (or a mix of both), more natural fertilisation promotes biodiversity in soils (therefore, making for more diverse soils), nutrient cycles and environmental harmony, improving soil structure and landscape water storage, while mitigating soil erosion and nutrient runoff to reduce the risk of water pollution and the degradation of freshwater ecosystems and aquatic biodiversity.
Importantly, more organic matter in soils could also promote carbon storage and sequestration to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change, a major concern given natural and anthropogenic drivers today.
Chemical fertilisers, by contrast, rely on synthetic-based inputs and highly intensive agricultural operations. Each one of these attributes generates significant environmental hazards. By tethering farming to fossil fuels and carbon-intensive processes, farming with inputs leads to higher energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.
By causing more water pollution and associated aquatic impacts, fertilisers result in the chronic eutrophication of natural waterways, the formation of damaging algal blooms, and the loss of biodiversity in our rivers, lakes and oceans – entrenched harmful consequences that affect the health of aquatic life and human populations who live downstream. Soil degradation, erosion and compaction tend to degrade the multifunctionality of agricultural landscapes and their capacity to serve generations of farmers and consumers to come.
When we compare productivity outcomes on the one hand and soil health, water quality and ecosystem integrity, and other objective outcomes such as the resilience of food systems, employment and the application of ecosystem services, then the benefits of organic fertilisers are much more substantial, and those of chemical fertilisers very limited. As humanity confronts the challenges of sustainably producing sufficient food for a growing population within the constraints of a finite planet, and one that’s rapidly changing because of climate change, the wide-ranging benefits of organic fertiliser practices make them vitally important in building a more sustainable and equitable future.
Economic Implications
Whether they are farmers, policymakers or consumers, one of the most vital factors they take into consideration is whether or not common farm practice is economically sustainable. The contrast between the use of either organic fertiliser or chemical fertiliser therefore, has great consequences with regards to production cost,the viability in the market place, and ultimately, the sustainability of the farmer’s sales income.
The high-input, high-output model favoured by chemical fertilisers, with their promise of short-term yield gains and low upfront costs for nutrient delivery, remains a popular agricultural practice. Intensified adoption of chemical fertilisers has certainly reduced production costs, increased productivity (yields) within farm systems, expanded gross agricultural outputs and boosted food-security and economic growth around the world.
Yet underpinning these chemical fertilisers are various unseen costs. These costs include soil health impacts, the need to remediate ecosystems impacted by fertiliser runoff, as well as the cost of cleaning up polluted waterways and the health burden caused by these chemicals. This is because, with time, a degree of fertility loss in soil builds up, reliance on nutrient runoff from farm fields increases, and, in some cases, the application of nitrogen fertilisers generates harmful ‘dead zones’ when nutrients run off into the water supply. Such reliance could impose a higher cost on farmers in that instead of yield gains, it could breed further dependency on greater inputs (with a requirement for more fertilisers) over time.
By comparison, organic fertilisers offer a longer-term, more sustainable, more holistic approach based on building soil health and keeping the natural cycles of biodiversity alive. To grow high yields and ensure food security, organic fertilisers such as compost, manure and cover crops must be produced and applied. These investments can require more labour, time and inputs relative to chemical fertilisers.
However, the dividends from investing in soil come later in terms of the benefits for food production, including greater crop resilience, lower inputs and market-driven value for organic products. Furthermore, and most crucially, consumers continue to value the added benefit of eating organically produced food, which reflects their own concerns for sustainability, health, ethical food security and issues centred on the environment. This growing focus on buying organic means they are willing to pay more for their food at the supermarket. As a result, organic farmers enjoy higher income averages and buoyant markets that the likes of Manjula in India can take advantage of.
For instance, the use of organic fertiliser has been shown to increase the net profits of farmers in the long run by decreasing input costs, providing enhanced resilience for crops and the opportunity to capture value-added premiums in niche markets. From ensuring soil health, water conservation and climate resilience, organic fertilisers contribute to the long-term sustainability of agricultural systems and the livelihoods of generations of farmers and communities’ lives that rely on them.
With this in mind, although chemical fertilisers might appear to be a source of immediate economic profit, the ability to maintain both profitability and sustainability with ever-growing ecological and social costs is not a secure vision of the future. Organic fertilisers, meeting farmers where they are while providing more regenerative agriculture and market-based sustainability goals, are positioning themselves as avenues for farmers to create resilient and profitable farm businesses. As we move towards transforming food systems to become more regenerative and equitable, it is critical that we not only consider the immediate economic benefits but also the broader reach of prosperity for farmers, eaters and the planet in the long term.
Regulatory and Policy Perspectives
Whether organic or chemical fertiliser is used is dependent on which combination of policies, industry standards and public views – held by an array of powerful stakeholders – prevails. Policymakers must manage trade-offs between different interests and values when regulating fertiliser use.
Organic farming is regulated in many countries, and organic products come with assurances for the consumer that they are produced following a predetermined set of rules and standards. Examples include prohibitions on synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, as well as against the use of genetically engineered organisms (GMOs); soil management rules that specify minimum acreage dedicated to perennial cover crops, and, typically, pest management plans based on crop rotation, botanical and biological treatments, and similar methods that conform with the standard.
In the US, for instance, organic certification agencies, such as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), monitor and regulate evidence of compliance with those standards, as do various European Union councils that help assure champions of organic agriculture that the products having the Organic Farming Regulation label meet those standards.
On the other hand, chemical fertiliser regulation tends to be more relaxed and heterogeneous – made up of a diverse patchwork of standards varying by jurisdiction – and sometimes with few restrictions on fertiliser use to mitigate environmental pollution and maintain water quality. In other words, while some governments have begun to address – with treaties, nutrient accounting, certification standards and nutrient-management plans – some of the harms caused by chemical inputs, their use is still predominantly a matter of voluntary guidelines and industry self-regulation.
In the past decade, however, growing attention to sustainability has backed calls for greater regulation of agrochemicals. We’re now seeing a renewed, global effort to improve fertiliser regulation at the level of the entire supply chain, taking into consideration not just soil health but also the role of fertilisers in polluting freshwater bodies and jeopardising human health.
Even so, regulatory approaches are hindered by barriers to coverage and compliance, including how to make sustainability benchmarks accessible to farmers or how to help them move up the ladder or pay for new scenarios. Farmers often have constraints on their ability to adopt sustainable practices or to meet regulatory approaches, whether that is because they have poorer access to information, financial resources or technical support. The agrifood sector’s globalisation through ever-longer supply chains and the advent of broad online marketplaces also pose challenges for its traceability and controls. This makes it more difficult to verify that fertiliser quality meets its claimed specifications, especially with potential for fraud and mislabelling, which are concerns with products purchased online.
Policymakers can overcome these challenges by coordinating with different stakeholders along the entire food production chain to develop evidence-based policy aimed at enabling soil, water and wider ecosystem health, while also making farming enterprises economically viable. For example, governments can create opportunities for innovation and knowledge-sharing at a local scale, enabling farmers to use fertilisers more efficiently and also reduce costs. Collective action by governments can facilitate farmers’ transition to more sustainable and resilient food systems for future generations.
Conclusion
In summary, it can be seen that the key difference between organic fertiliser and chemical fertiliser is that the former has a low decomposition rate and slower nutrient absorption hence has a minimised yield while the latter has the opposite effect. Furthermore, chemical fertiliser is almost twice cheaper than organic fertiliser. However, there is an enormous trade-off between yield, sustainability of food security and economic viability in crop production. Unfortunately, chemical fertiliser has tremendous environmental costs like degradation of soil, water pollution, and release of greenhouse gases.
On the other hand, organic fertiliser initiates a mechanism of soil health, biodiversity, and sustainability in the long run for sustainability of food production. In a world faced with rising climatic constraints, organic fertilisers will become a crucial component to build in resilience. With a growing world population and hence rising demand for food, the conservation of the limited water and land resources and the mitigation of the climatic challenges that the farming sector will face becomes even more critical, and biological inputs and regenerative production methods will play a key role.
Through its positive impact on soil quality, water use efficiency and adaptation to a changing environment, organic fertilisers are becoming a key component to shift towards more regenerative agriculture, which minimises the detrimental environmental impact of chemical inputs, and creates more resilient food systems to feed the world without exploiting farmers and communities.
Moving forward, it is imperative for policymakers, farmers and consumers to jointly disseminate organic fertiliser practices and formulate sustainable and resilient agricultural systems that can balance high yield and protect the environment. Investing in research, extension services and infrastructure can support farmers in the transition to more sustainable and environmentally friendly farming practices. Efforts to improve regulatory systems, implement market incentives and encourage consumer awareness are paramount for creating the required ecosystem for sustainable agriculture and food systems.
Overall, further research and support from policymakers, farmers and consumers are crucial for the development of a sustainable and environmentally friendly production approach that relies on biofertilisers and minimises the use of synthetic fertilisers worldwide. If we stay true to the hallmarks of agroecology, regenerative agriculture and sustainable development, we can build a future where agriculture sustains people and the planet, and guarantees food security, environmental integrity and social justice for future generations. Today’s choices are tomorrow’s world. By making sure that agriculture works with nature to support life and livelihoods for all, we will inherit the world we deserve.
Here are some references：
Gutiérrez-Miceli, F. A., et al. “Comparison of Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers on Growth, Yield and Fruit Quality of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum).” Journal of Agricultural Science 6.7 (2014): 15-25.
Title: “Impact of organic and chemical fertilizers on soil microbial communities” Authors: Brown, K., et al. Journal: Soil Biology and Biochemistry Year: 2020
Title: “Environmental impact assessment of organic and chemical fertilizer use” Authors: Johnson, D., et al. Journal: Environmental Science and Pollution Research Year: 2022
