The Fertilizer Industry and Importance of Nutrient Management Databases.

Sustainability initiatives in the food and agriculture industries are developing metrics to address the issues that matter most to their stakeholders. The crop nutrition industry's 4R Nutrient Stewardship approach emphasizes a cycle of continuous assessment of practice performance. Reporting on many metrics requires model predictions of the impacts of practices on performance areas including water quality, air quality, greenhouse gases, productivity, and input use efficiencies. Thus, databases detailing practices as well as performance are an essential part of the data stewardship necessary for the communication of progress in improving sustainability. Credible communication depends on clear, simple messages supported by evidence. This presentation will provide examples of industry efforts on establishing databases of information of interest to those assessing the sustainability of crop nutrition.