Letter: Good to see nitrogen on the agenda at last

From Sam Edge, Ringwood, Hampshire, UK

I was glad to read that the United Nations, and hopefully national governments, are starting to take the damage commercial farming does to the environment with nitrogen fertilisers seriously (15 May, p 41).

I’m not sanguine about anything being done in the UK in the near future, however, as the agrochemical and farming lobbies have a lot of power.

It is worth pointing out that many of the poor soils you mention exist mainly because of commercial nitrogen-based fertilisers. Their introduction allowed the exploitation of land using vast, often deep-ploughed, monoculture crop fields without trees, hedgerows or wildlife. All these components destroy soils and result in a vicious circle of requiring more and more agrochemicals.