U.S. farmers are spreading too much fertilizer on their fields, causing air pollution in the eastern part of the country, as well as boosting emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases, according to a new study by scientists at NASA and several universities.
To combat this boom in nitrogen-based fertilizers, federal officials are pushing new software and sensor technologies to help farmers be more precise
“American agriculture wants to be part of the solution and not part of the problem,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in an interview with Discovery News. “We are learning more about the individual character of each acre of farmland. “With new technologies we can better understand the precise condition of each acre, so we can be more precise about each application.” says a representative.Bauer said that while farming occurs throughout the United States, the biggest impact on air pollution is in the Northeast where nitrogen emissions from fertilizer and ammonia from animal waste combine with sulfates and nitrogen oxides from industries and automobiles.
These particles combine and form aerosols which are about 1/30th the width of a human hair, the study said. Aerosols get into your lungs, causing heart or lung disease and an estimated 3.3 million deaths worldwide annually.
The more polluted eastern United States has some areas where annual aerosol and particulate matter concentrations exceed health standards from the World Health Organization and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Agriculture is responsible for about half of the total human-caused pollution in both the eastern and western United States, the new report found.
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