Impact Metrics for Crop Nutrition Sustainability in North America.

The crop nutrition industry recognizes sustainability as an opportunity to more systematically contribute information documenting the impact and outcomes of nutrient stewardship practices. The 4R Nutrient Stewardship concept requires impact metrics of interest to a broad range of stakeholders of crop production systems. To provide information that is both understandable and comprehensively representative of all relevant impacts, it is important to accurately define, group and place together appropriate sets of complementary metrics. The fertilizer industry agrees that nutrient use efficiency metrics must be balanced with metrics for productivity and soil health. In the same manner, it may be helpful to group indicators of further-reaching impacts, including water and air quality, greenhouse gas balance, food security, biodiversity and economic value. This presentation will describe a potential set of metrics and examine recent trends in North America.