It plans to invest “substantial capital” to bring the mine back into production, the company said in a statement.

The acquisition includes a processing plant in Matheson, Ontario, and various other mineral properties in the province. Infracon chief executive officer Geoff Hampson will head the operation through a subsidiary company called KAP Minerals.

Agrium closed the open-pit mine around 2013, according to a report in Northern Ontario Business. At the time, Agrium said the mine would be nearing depletion.

Infracon Construction said KAP Minerals plans to commercialize the Apatite deposit, a high-quality phosphate deposit in the Cargill Township Carbonatite Complex.

The company said it plans to work with Taykwa Tagamou Nation to establish a benefits agreement to provide employment and contracting opportunities for First Nation-owned businesses in the region.

Earlier this year, Fox River Resources Corp proposed the Martison Phosphate Project northeast of Hearst, Ontario.

Canada depends on imports of phosphorus to meet domestic need. Western Canada consumes about 892,000 tonnes of actual phosphorus per year, while Eastern Canada consumes about 202,000 tones of actual phosphorus, according to a 2022 report from the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI).

In that report, CAPI said the limited supplies and suppliers of phosphate fertilizers are “increasingly perceived as a source of vulnerability in a more volatile world.”

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The current system, where it’s unknown if products work or not, is a cost and a risk for Canadian growers, the NFU says in a report published Oct. 21.

“’Farmer buy-and-try’ should no longer be the norm for non-fertilizer supplements,” said James Hannay, an NFU policy analyst.

“Farmers should not bear the costs of testing non-fertilizer supplements, nor can farmers deliver statistically significant results to prove that they work.”

The NFU report comes at a time when hundreds of novel supplements are now available to Canadian producers.

There are bio-stimulants, bio-fertilizers, seaweed extracts, humic acids and many other products on the market, with more being introduced every month.

Along with the hundreds of products, there are dozens of claims on the benefits of fertilizer supplements.

“Biologicals like nitrogen-fixing bacteria can … reduce the need for applied N fertilizer without reducing yields, a solution that can help farmers with their productivity and sustainability goals,” says the website of one firm, promoting its bio-fertilizer.

It’s difficult for farmers to make sense of these claims and all the noise.

Prior to 2013, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency tested fertilizer supplements to check their efficacy, and the NFU is calling on the feds to restore those regulations.

“Given that supplements can have multiple active ingredients and modes of action, they are best defined based on their claimed benefits to agriculture; it is therefore essential that these claims be tested and the data be made publicly available so that farmers can make informed choices,” the NFU says in a summary of its report.

There is testing and publicly available data on the efficacy of fertilizer supplements, but producers do have to search for the results.

For instance, the Western Applied Research Corporation (WARC), a non-profit in Saskatchewan, has tested nitrogen-fixing biological products and their efficacy on spring wheat. The results are available on the WARC website.

Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers has also looked at the efficacy of biological products as part of its on-farm research network. Those results have been presented publicly and can be found on the MPSG website.

So, efficacy testing of fertilizer supplements is happening in Canada, but the CFIA isn’t leading the charge.

The NFU argues that handing this responsibility back to the CFIA will actually be helpful for the supplements industry.

“Farmers will have independent validation and quantification of claimed benefits, enabling them to … purchase products with confidence,” the NFU says.

“Non-performing products will be removed from the marketplace, increasing trust in the entire supplements sector.”

The NFU is hoping other farm groups will join the effort to restore efficacy testing in Canada. It is hoping that the program will be included in the 2025 federal budget.

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Moscow suggested that if demands to improve exports of its own grain and fertilizer were met it would consider resurrecting the Black Sea agreement. However, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that a U.N. pact that helped Russia to make shipments over the past year was also terminated.

“Only upon receipt of concrete results, and not promises and assurances, will Russia be ready to consider restoring the deal,” said Russia’s foreign ministry.

Russia told the U.N. shipping agency – the International Maritime Organization (IMO) – that its “guarantees for the safety of navigation” had been revoked and that “proactive necessary actions and response measures to neutralize threats posed by the Kiev regime in the area will be taken.”

Insurers on Monday were reviewing whether to freeze cover for any ships willing to sail to Ukraine. The reaction on the grains market was modest, with U.S. wheat futures Wv1 up about 3% while U.S. corn futures Cv1 rose nearly 1%.

“I think there is market belief that Russia and the EU have large supplies of wheat which can meet world demand in the coming months, with harvests arriving,” one German trader said.

The Black Sea deal was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey in July last year to combat a global food crisis worsened by Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s top grain exporters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday everything must be done so that the Black Sea grain export corridor continues to be used, his spokesperson said.

“Today’s decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere,” U.N. chief Guterres told reporters.

The U.N. would continue trying to ensure unimpeded access to global markets for food products and fertilizers from Ukraine and Russia, Guterres said.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, described Moscow’s move as an “act of cruelty.”

Last ship has sailed

Nearly 33 million metric tons of corn, wheat and other grains have been exported by Ukraine under the arrangement. The last ship left Ukraine under the deal on Sunday.

To convince Russia to agree to the Black Sea deal, a three-year memorandum of understanding was struck in July 2022 under which U.N. officials agreed to help Russia get its food and fertilizer exports to foreign markets.

Russia’s main demands were the resumption of its ammonia exports through a pipeline to the Ukrainian port of Odesa and the reconnection of its state agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank to the SWIFT international payments system. It was cut off by the European Union in June last year after the invasion.

Guterres said on Monday that the U.N. had managed to create a “bespoke payments mechanism” for the Russian Agricultural Bank through U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase & CoJPM.N and “recently brokered a concrete proposal” with the European Commission to enable a Rosselkhozbank subsidiary to regain access to SWIFT.

But he signalled that all those efforts would end because Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea deal also terminated its pact with the U.N. on its own exports, under which Moscow had committed to “facilitate the unimpeded export of food, sunflower oil, and fertilizers from Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea Ports.”

Global hunger

Guterres had made a final attempt to save the Black Sea grain deal by writing to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday last week to ask him to extend it in exchange for the cooperation of the European Commission on Rosselkhozbank.

In a letter to Guterres on Monday, Russia said the options presented “are not feasible and will not ensure uninterrupted cross-border financial transactions,” Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy posted on Twitter. He said the letter informed Guterres that Moscow was terminating the Black Sea grain deal.

European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Russia’s decision a “cynical move”, adding that the EU would continue to work towards ensuring food security for poor countries.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he believed Putin wants the continuation of the deal, adding that he will discuss it when they meet in person in August.

Russia had agreed three times in the past year to extend the Black Sea deal, but also briefly suspended its participation at the end of October in response to a drone attack on its fleet in Crimea.

There was concern about the impact the expiry of the pact would have on feeding the hungry worldwide.

Under the deal, the U.N. said its World Food Program (WFP) has procured 80% of its wheat so far in 2023 from Ukraine – up from 50% in 2021 and 2022. The WFP has shipped about 725,000 metric tons of Ukrainian wheat to Afghanistan, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Yemen to fight hunger.

“Rations are being cut to children every day now across the world – it is utterly dramatic and this (deal) was one of the few glimmers of hope in this age of Biblical starvation,” said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

— Reporting by Reuters reporters; writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michelle Nichols.

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With 13 days remaining until the expiry of the deal, which has allowed Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports despite Russia’s invasion, Moscow said there had been no progress on any of its key demands, including the banking issue.

The Financial Times reported on Monday that the European Union was considering a proposal to allow Russia’s Rosselkhozbank to set up a subsidiary that could connect to SWIFT.

But Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed the idea as “deliberately unworkable,” saying it would take many months to set up such a unit and another three months to connect to SWIFT.

She also rejected a U.N. attempt to create an alternative payment channel between Rosselkhozbank and U.S. bank JP Morgan.

“There is no real replacement for SWIFT, and cannot be,” Zakharova said in a statement.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said on Monday she was not confident the grain deal would be renewed.

“The U.N. is doing all it can and we will do all we can. We’ve already worked very closely with the City of London to enable a very complex payment system for grain in order to make it work and continue to get food on people’s tables,” she said.

Russia says the severing of the bank’s access to SWIFT is one of the obstacles facing its own exports of food and fertilizer, and that it cannot keep renewing the Black Sea deal unless those issues are addressed.

‘Fertilizer crunch’

The stakes are high. The United Nations says the deal has so far allowed the export of more than 32 million metric tonnes of food from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports to 45 countries on three continents.

It describes the Black Sea grain deal and the efforts to facilitate Russian grain and fertilizer exports as “a lifeline for global food security.”

Any disruption or halt to such trade could aggravate a food crisis in the poorest countries and push global prices higher. Since March 2022, global food prices have dropped by 22%, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Russia has made previous threats to quit the deal, but its rhetoric has hardened since then.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Tuesday it was “obvious there are no grounds” to extend the deal beyond July 17 and that Russia was doing everything necessary for all ships covered by the deal to leave the Black Sea before that date.

It also said the deal had delivered Ukrainian grain to “well-fed” countries but failed to help those most in need.

The five poorest countries — Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia — received only 2.6 per cent of the grain shipped, it said, while the situation regarding Russian grain and fertilizer exports had “continued to worsen.”

The U.N. said the World Food Programme has bought more than 700,000 tonnes of grain under the Black Sea deal for aid operations in those countries — matching the volumes it procured from Ukraine in 2021.

But it has acknowledged that a “fertilizer crunch remains a reality for farmers in certain developing countries, against the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis.”

The U.N. said it is continuing to work on ways to facilitate Russian fertilizer exports including: a trade finance platform with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank); facilities related to banking and insurance; and the resumption of key transshipment routes for fertilizer and ammonia.

— Reporting for Reuters by Felix Light and Olzhas Auyezov; writing by Mark Trevelyan and Michelle Nichols.

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The Russian invasion has left Ukraine seriously short of finances, seeds and crop protection products, which could have a negative impact on crop yields this year.

APK-Inform said farmers had 9,356 tonnes of herbicides and pesticides, which is 34.7 per cent of the declared 26,926 tonnes needed for the first half of this year.

The volume included 6,231 tonnes of herbicides, or about 36 per cent of the volume needed.

The ministry said the most difficult situation is Kyiv and Lviv regions.

Denys Marchuk, deputy chair of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, said a lack of funds is the main problem for farmers this spring.

“Farmers will not be able to buy everything they need — seeds, fertilizers, fuel, crop protection products. Yields will be much lower and this will affect our export potential,”  he told an online briefing.

“It is important to find money to lend to farmers,” Marchuk added.

The council said last week agricultural companies, which plant most of Ukraine’s fields, are 40 billion hryvnia (C$1.49 billion) short of the funds they need to carry out spring work.

The ministry has not yet published its forecast for the 2023 grain harvest while the national academy of agricultural science said the harvest may fall 37 per cent to 34 million tonnes.

The 2022 grain harvest fell to around 54 million tonnes from a record 86 million in 2021.

Output was hit by hostilities in Ukraine’s eastern, northern and southern regions following Russia’s invasion.

— Reporting for Reuters by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv.

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But a University of Central Florida (UCF) research team, with collaborators at Virginia Tech, are working to change this by increasing the efficiency of a more sustainable method.

The researchers recently published critical findings about the electrochemical synthesis of ammonia, advancing sustainable fertilizer research and thus aiding global food safety efforts.

Ammonia, a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, is an essential ingredient in many fertilizers for food production. However, its primary method of production, the Haber-Bosch method, consumes three to five per cent of the world’s natural gas output and accounts for more than one per cent of global carbon emissions.

Using the metal ruthenium as a catalyst, researchers identified the most efficient way to produce ammonia through a more sustainable production method — electrochemically. This production method can be more sustainable when electricity from renewable sources, such as solar or wind, is used to power the electrochemical synthesis, the researchers say.

The findings were published recently in ACS Energy Letters.

While there are many research efforts on electrochemical ammonia production, the underlying mechanisms have yet to be better understood, the researchers say. 

However, this new research helps provide a clearer picture of the reaction mechanism, says study co-author Xiaofeng Feng, a professor in UCF’s Department of Physics.

“The results of this in-depth work can provide important guidance to researchers on how to design more efficient catalysts towards sustainable ammonia production,” Feng says.

Ruthenium’s optimal binding strength with reaction intermediates makes it one of the most active catalysts for the nitrogen reduction reaction, which produces ammonia by combining nitrogen with hydrogen from water molecules.

Using atomic layer deposition, the researchers were able to have very precise control of the synthesized nanomaterials at the atomic scale, allowing the testing of ruthenium nanoparticles ranging from two to eight nanometers.

Researchers discovered that while layering ruthenium atoms into a catalytic structure, a special arrangement of ruthenium surface atoms — named the D5 step site — was the most active site for the electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction.

Unlike other sites, the D5 step site possesses the “perfect balance,” favouring the formation of the N2H intermediate and not getting poisoned or rendered unable to allow new molecules to adsorb and react, by the NH2 intermediate, the researchers say.

Ruthenium nanoparticles of around four nanometers in size were found to have the best catalytic performance for the nitrogen reduction reaction. Activity peaked at four nanometers and then dropped by five-fold as the particle size was doubled, demonstrating the critical effect of ruthenium particle size on the catalysis.

The researchers’ previous work to improve the efficiency of the electrochemical production of ammonia helped the current study by providing a mechanistic understanding and research methodology.

The new research is a collaboration between three research teams.

Feng and his students characterized the ruthenium samples and investigated them as catalysts for the electrochemical production of ammonia. Study co-author Parag Banerjee, a professor in UCF’s Department of Materials Science & Engineering, and his students focused on the precise synthesis of ruthenium metal nanoparticles in Banerjee’s lab.

Additionally, Virginia Tech professor Hongliang Xin and his student performed computational studies to model and identify the atomic structure that is responsible for the highest catalytic performance.

The researchers plan to collaborate further to develop more complex, efficient materials using atomic layer deposition for sustainable ammonia production, Feng says.

They also will implement the catalyst materials in advanced electrolyzer devices to improve the yield rate and efficiency of electrically powered ammonia production.

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By the late 1960s, farmers in developed countries had adopted and incorporated high-yielding varieties of cereals, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, irrigation and more mechanized forms of cultivation. These technologies were also adopted in developing countries, and have been credited with saving millions from starvation.

Mexico became the first test case for international agricultural development for the U.S. government. The country became more self-sufficient in its food production through use of higher yielding seeds, pest and weed controls and improved use of soils and irrigation. The country achieved this with scientific and financial support from the United Nations, the U.S. government, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Successes in other countries such as India and Pakistan, where population growth was exceeding food production capacity at an alarming rate, soon followed.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Green Revolution is its heavy dependence on fossil fuel use. Chemical fertilizers require natural gas, some pesticides are derived from oil and mechanization and irrigation also requires power using hydrocarbons.

The growth in global population since the start of the Green Revolution is five billion people.

This has created an unintentional conundrum for agriculture.

There is an ever-growing demand for more food production, but many of the methods and tools needed to meet this demand can have negative consequences for the climate.

Canada, like many other top-producing agriculture countries, is under the microscope both at home and globally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture production.

[RELATED] Lowering emissions without sacrificing profits

What’s needed is another green revolution, with green denoting low emissions rather than density of plants.

That’s the conclusion of a new thought-leadership report jointly authored by Royal Bank of Canada, the University of Guelph’s Arrell Food Institute and Boston Consulting Group’s Centre for Canada’s Future entitled, The Next Green Revolution: How Canada can produce more food and fewer emissions.

The report says Canada can indeed achieve its goals of reducing GHG, but a “national effort, tailored to regional contexts and focused on the key pillars of technology, finance, skills and public policy, will be essential to increasing our production while also cutting emissions.”

It will also take considerable funding, as the report points out.

The report was released a month prior to the launch of consultations for a Sustainable Agriculture Strategy being developed by Agriculture and Agri-food Canada. According to a press release on the launch, the strategy will “serve as a guide to support the livelihoods of farmers while growing a sustainable sector.”

AAFC plans to achieve this by “identifying goals and a way forward” so that Canada’s agriculture sector will be better equipped to “recover quickly from extreme events, thrive in a changing climate, contribute to world food security, while also contributing to Canada’s overall efforts to cut emissions.”

The strategy is a clear departure from the historical focus on just improving productivity.

The department said the overarching and integrated strategy will focus on five priority issues: soil health; climate adaptation and resilience; water; climate change mitigation; and biodiversity.

It may seem like a tall order but as AAFC points out in the release, producers have taken action on sustainability and will continue to do so.

I like that AAFC acknowledges this and wants to “amplify the work already underway and increase adoption of these best practices.”

The fear with any of these types of strategies is that too much time and money are wasted trying to reinvent the wheel.

AAFC said the strategy will be developed in close collaboration with the agricultural sector and that it will engage provinces and territories as well.

An advisory committee has been established, which includes a diverse cross-section of sector stakeholders that AAFC said will play an important role in facilitating collaboration, transparency and information sharing. Twenty organizations are members, including most national livestock and crop commodity groups, Fertilizer Canada, Farmers for Climate Solutions, and the Canadian Agri-food Policy Institute.

I encourage you to read the discussion document available on AAFC’s website, which you can comment on until March 31. It’s comprehensive and provides an in-depth view of what the federal government wants to achieve.

It’s a rare opportunity for farmers and industry stakeholders to provide input on how policy could affect their industry.

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While nitrogen prices remain high, there are strategies growers can employ to reduce nitrogen use without sacrificing profits or yields.

Several researchers explained how Ontario growers can use nitrogen more efficiently at the 2023 Ontario Agricultural Conference in Ridgetown last month.

Why it matters: Using nitrogen more efficiently is key to reducing costs while maintaining crop yields.

Craig Drury, soil biochemist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and John Lauzon, crop science professor at the University of Guelph, said to be profitable in times of high nitrogen prices, maximizing yields is not the best strategy.

In fact, doing so costs more than the perceived gain in yield, while also increasing fertilizer loss, they said.

Nitrogen is lost through several means, such as tile drainage and surface runoff, nitrate leaching and ammonia volatilization. Drury suggests growers picture “a pipe with lots of holes,” where the first aperture is volatilization, followed by nitrification and a series of potential losses from excess moisture, erosion, and so on.

[RELATED] OMAFRA discontinues annual nitrogen survey

Whatever remains is what’s available to the plant.

Increasing the amount of available nitrogen requires what Drury calls “valves,” or safety checks at each stage of loss. These include inhibitors, as well as changes in application strategy.

However, practices intended to increase the longevity of nitrogen fertilizer have to be carefully leveraged to avoid increasing the potential for loss at different stages.

A urease inhibitor may slow the volatilization process, for example, but can increase the later risk of losses as soil pH becomes more basic, and ammonium turns into nitrate.

Some of the best results in Drury and Lauzon’s field research have come from the use of more than one nitrogen inhibitor. Incorporation after early-season broadcast application also drastically reduces volatilization losses, although the presence of cracks by which ammonia can escape, such as in overly dry conditions, still results in significant losses.

The same applies to injecting fertilizer, but applying nitrogen in two bands rather than one reduces the concentration of the nutrient, resulting in less volatilization, even in overly dry conditions.

Experiments combining nitrogen inhibitors and dual-band application have shown loss reductions ranging from 72 to 97 per cent in volatilization, which results in loss of nitrogen to the air.

“It pays to both inject and add inhibitors to reduce loss,” said Drury.

Knowing weather patterns and the unique characteristics of each field is also critical. Areas prone to excessive moisture retention are at risk for nitrogen loss through groundwater. Hot days, not enough moisture, high winds – these can all exacerbate losses through volatilization, particularly just after application.

Lauzon said manure trials under such conditions have shown near complete ammonium nitrogen loss within three days of application.

Drury reiterated the value of using both urease and nitrification inhibitors and improving placement. The use of all three can have a yield benefit, but growers still have to keep their soil and unique climate in mind.

“Understand how nitrogen is lost on your farm … There’s a whole suite of solutions or tools you can pick and choose to match your scenario,” he said.

Finding the right rate

Finding the right nitrogen rate for a given piece of land is another challenge, said Josh Nasielski, assistant professor of agronomy and crop physiology at the University of Guelph. Consistently opting for more rather than less has been the historical norm, but years of field data indicate that strategy is often counterproductive economically and environmentally.

A decade-long Ontario corn study, for example, shows between 160 and 180 units of nitrogen nets within $10 per acre of the maximum profit. The incorrect conclusion to draw from this result, said Nasielski, is that extra nitrogen is needed every year to jump the last $10 hurdle.

The correct conclusion? Determine what will net high profits 80 per cent of the time, and only top up with additional nutrients if necessary in a given year.

Nasielski said growers can figure out the ballpark rate that works for them by conducting delta yield strip trials — using a strip in a field to compare a very high and very low nitrogen rate. The yield difference between the two indicates yield response.

Inputting the data in the N-Rate Evaluator tool available on GoCorn.net will provide a reliable range estimate.

He said the tool can also help account for variances within the field, as well as the value of “free nitrogen” in the soil.

“Can you get 220-bushel corn with just starter nitrogen? I probably would have said no … but it turns out it is true. That’s what these delta yield trials can do. It shows you how much nitrogen you’re getting for free.

“I’m not saying this is true for all of Ontario …but it’s nice to know what your rotation, what your cover crops, what your soil texture, organic matter mineralization, residue, any amendments you’re adding — what that’s giving you for free.”

Measuring soil performance

Accounting for in-field variability is the next step in reducing fertilizer emissions and costs, according to Deb Campbell, agronomist and owner of Agronomy Advantage Inc.

Joining Nasielski on stage at the Ontario Agricultural Conference, Campbell encouraged the use of SWAT (soil, water, and topography) maps to “dial-in nitrogen” to the landscape.

Identifying different zones allows growers to change strategies based on need and avenue of potential loss. Campbell said in-season soil and plant tissue analysis helps determine available nutrient levels and how well crops are responding. Adding NDVI imagery to measure biomass supports mid-season assessments by confirming what’s being observed at the field level, she said.

“Forty per cent of nitrogen you put on ends up in the grain. That’s an alarming number,” she said.

“Where does the rest of it go? At $1,200 a tonne, where is the $800 going? When we think about disease management, pest management, integrated pest management, we’re monitoring and assessing all season long. Why aren’t we doing that with nitrogen?”

Setting realistic yield goals based on the proven potential of different soil zones is a critical part of effectively managing nutrients by zone, she said.

“That’s a key piece of precision agriculture, knowing your soils and how they perform. The goal [is] to be more profitable at the end of the day. Any time we’re increasing nitrogen use efficiency, we’re reducing losses. They go hand in hand.”

A fifth ‘R’ in 4R management

Claudia Wagner-Riddle, professor at the University of Guelph’s School of Environmental Sciences, said from her perspective, the role of soil as a provider of nitrogen must be elevated in conventional approaches to agronomy.

She called on attendees to focus on a fifth management “R” — rotation, for improved soil health, crop diversity and cover crop diversity.

“In the long term, you really want to build up soil organic matter, improve the resilience of your system and rely more on biology to provide the nitrogen as opposed to adding it synthetically,” said Wagner-Riddle.

“We need to move away from the idea that more is better, to just managing it better.”

She said the need to do so is ever-more important as government policy seeks to limit a large portion of crop-production emissions. Continued movement toward managing the right time, source and place will reduce the need to focus on rate.

“Optimizing nitrogen use through mitigation is really reducing the leaks … It’s really about how much you’re putting in and how much you’re getting out.”

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Ynsect breeds mealworms that produce proteins for aquaculture, livestock, pet food, fertilizers and human nutrition.

The company signed the U.S. agreement with flour milling company Ardent Mills to build a factory next to one of its U.S. Midwest sites — yet to be determined — by the end of 2023.

The two new sites will cost at least 100 million euros (about C$144.2 million) each and output should eventually rise to about 200,000 tonnes of insect-based ingredients per year, Ynsect CEO Antoine Hubert told Reuters.

Ardent Mills, a joint venture between ConAgra Foods, Cargill and CHS Inc., would supply milling byproducts to feed the insects.

In Mexico, Ynsect teamed up with food and general services provider Corporativo Kosmos. The factory would be located near Mexico City and export to the U.S. market.

“The U.S. market is strategic for us, it is the first market in the world for pet food, pork and poultry feed, fertilizers and on sports and human nutrition they largely stand out,” said Hubert.

Ynsect entered the U.S. market in late 2021 through a deal with Pure Simple to supply premium food for dogs. In March it purchased mealworm producer Jord Producers, allowing it to enter the fast-growing backyard chicken feed sector.

The company is discussing about 10 other deals in Europe, the Middle East and Asia and expects additional agreements next year.

“In 2023 we estimate that we should have additional financing for Ynsect because today we don’t have the means to finance new projects,” Hubert said.

Ynsect built what it says will be the world’s largest vertical farm in Amiens, northern France, which started earlier this year.

Ynsect has so far raised about US$450 million, mainly used to build its giga-farm in Amiens and for its recent acquisitions, which also include the takeover of Dutch firm Protifarm last year.

It is considering a stock market listing in appropriate conditions.

“It would make a lot of sense on many aspects including reinforcing our credibility towards other industrial partners,” Hubert said.

— Sybille de La Hamaide is a Reuters commodities correspondent in Paris.

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Flowers produce a diverse range of cues and attractants to insects that promote feeding and pollination. Bees use colour, sun and magnetic fields to navigate the landscape. On a smaller scale, they use cues like flower odour and colour, but also humidity and electric fields to identify plants. 

Farmers routinely apply mixtures of chemicals, in particular fertilizers, on plants using large-scale spray applications. The widespread use of chemicals in agriculture and horticulture has been linked to reductions in bee population size and diversity.

While researchers have long recognized that many of these chemicals are toxic, they know little about how agrochemicals affect the immediate interaction between plants and pollinators. Spray applications can change the properties of flowers in several ways. Many agricultural chemicals carry an electric charge designed to adhere to plants. Thus, spray applications can potentially change the electric fields surrounding a flower.

A big question is whether chemical application can distort floral cues and modify behaviour in pollinators like bees.

Researchers tested the effect of fertilizer sprays on various floral cues used by bees. They observed that the chemical did not affect vision and smell, but there was a response in the electric field surrounding the flower. To visualize this, the researchers sprayed cut flowers with positively charged, coloured particles released as an aerosol.

[RELATED] Microbe protects honeybees by boosting nutrition

To get a better idea of what changed in the flower, the researchers measured an electric property of the flower, the bio-electric potential in the stem. This potential is an important source of the electric field surrounding flowers. 

They observed that sprays with chemicals changed this bio-electric potential for up to 25 minutes. This change is substantially longer than natural fluctuations, such as those caused by wind, and aligns with observed declines (about 20 minutes) in bee-feeding efforts observed in nature. Interestingly, they observed that the plant had the same lasting response when there was a simulated rain event after the use of chemicals, suggesting the effect persists beyond the single use of chemicals. 

To test whether the observed changes in the plant’s electrical signature are indeed perceived by bees, the researchers mimicked the electrical changes caused by fertilizers in the field by electrically manipulating flowers. While bumblebees were approaching the flowers, they observed that bees were less keen to land on a flower that was electrically manipulated compared to a control flower that was not manipulated. This showed that bees were able to detect and discriminate the small and dynamic electric field alterations that are caused by agricultural chemicals.

The fact that fertilizers affect pollinator behaviour by interfering with the way an organism perceives its physical environment offers a new perspective on how human-made chemicals disturb the natural environment and emphasizes the importance of considering the seemingly hidden senses that are used by insects to understand and learn about their environment.

“That fertilizers affect bee behaviour by changing the way it experiences its physical environment gives a new perspective on how humans disturb the natural environment,” said the paper’s lead author, Ellard Hunting. 

“Imagine yourself not being able to distinguish apples from tomatoes because someone sprayed some chemicals in the vegetable department. This may be relevant for all organisms that use the electric fields that are virtually everywhere in the environment.’’

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