Evidence-based Nitrogen Indexes for Sustainable Agriculture

Reactive nitrogen (Nr) is essential for agricultural production and human nutrition, but also leads to Nr pollution. Nr pollution induced by food are created by millions of diverse producers/products worldwide with vastly different climates, soils and agronomic management.

To identify effective solutions under this heterogeneity, we presented a methodological framework to build the evidence-based nitrogen (N) indexes for global food at varying levels of detail and complexity. It would provide a comprehensive assessment of Nr loss for individual food items, a robust prediction of associated environmental and socioeconomic impacts to make global agriculture more sustainable, less polluting and more profitable.