Can we feed the world without using chemical fertilisers?

The development of agriculture some 12,000 years ago changed the
way humans live.


As technologies have developed we’ve become more and more
efficient at producing large amounts of food and feeding an ever
growing population, often with the help of synthetically produced
nitrogen fertiliser.


These fertilisers can damage ecosystems. They also produce a
potent greenhouse gas called Nitrous Oxide which is 265 times
more warming than carbon dioxide. It’s estimated that the
manufacturing and use of this fertiliser contributes 2% of global
greenhouse gas emissions. But is it feasible to ban synthetic
nitrogen fertilisers or would that risk plunging the world into
mass food insecurity?


Join presenters Qasa Alom and Graihagh Jackson as they journey
from an urban garden in Sri Lanka, where a radical fertiliser ban
caused chaos, to eastern Africa where Kenyan farmers are mixing
tradition with new technology to try and save the world’s
climate, and its soils.


With thanks to: Dr Rona Thompson, Senior Scientist at the
Norwegian Institute for Air research, Norway Professor Manish
Raizada, dept. of Plant Agriculture, at the University of Guelph,
Canada Dr David Lelei, research associate at CIFOR-ICRAF,
Nairobi, Kenya Elijah Musenya, farmer, western Kenya.


And Phelystus Wayeta, for travelling to Western Kenya to report
on farmers and farming practices.


Producer: Lizzy McNeill Reporter: Aanya Wipulasena, Colombo, Sri
Lanka Researchers: Imogen Serwotka Production co-ordinators:
Helena Warwick-Cross , Siobhan Reed. Series Producer: Alex Lewis
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith Sound Mix: Tom Brignell