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How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?

Nitrogen is the most crucial element in the production of nutritious feeds and foods. The production of reactive nitrogen by means of fossil fuel has thus far been able to guarantee the protein supply for the world population. Yet, the production and massive use of fertilizer nitrogen constitute a m...

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Autores principales: Matassa, Silvio, Boeckx, Pascal, Boere, Jos, Erisman, Jan Willem, Guo, Miao, Manzo, Raffaele, Meerburg, Francis, Papirio, Stefano, Pikaar, Ilje, Rabaey, Korneel, Rousseau, Diederik, Schnoor, Jerald, Smith, Peter, Smolders, Erik, Wuertz, Stefan, Verstraete, Willy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9803332/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36378579
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.14159
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author Matassa, Silvio
Boeckx, Pascal
Boere, Jos
Erisman, Jan Willem
Guo, Miao
Manzo, Raffaele
Meerburg, Francis
Papirio, Stefano
Pikaar, Ilje
Rabaey, Korneel
Rousseau, Diederik
Schnoor, Jerald
Smith, Peter
Smolders, Erik
Wuertz, Stefan
Verstraete, Willy
author_facet Matassa, Silvio
Boeckx, Pascal
Boere, Jos
Erisman, Jan Willem
Guo, Miao
Manzo, Raffaele
Meerburg, Francis
Papirio, Stefano
Pikaar, Ilje
Rabaey, Korneel
Rousseau, Diederik
Schnoor, Jerald
Smith, Peter
Smolders, Erik
Wuertz, Stefan
Verstraete, Willy
author_sort Matassa, Silvio
collection PubMed
description Nitrogen is the most crucial element in the production of nutritious feeds and foods. The production of reactive nitrogen by means of fossil fuel has thus far been able to guarantee the protein supply for the world population. Yet, the production and massive use of fertilizer nitrogen constitute a major threat in terms of environmental health and sustainability. It is crucial to promote consumer acceptance and awareness towards proteins produced by highly effective microorganisms, and their potential to replace proteins obtained with poor nitrogen efficiencies from plants and animals. The fact that reactive fertilizer nitrogen, produced by the Haber Bosch process, consumes a significant amount of fossil fuel worldwide is of concern. Moreover, recently, the prices of fossil fuels have increased the cost of reactive nitrogen by a factor of 3 to 5 times, while international policies are fostering the transition towards a more sustainable agro‐ecology by reducing mineral fertilizers inputs and increasing organic farming. The combination of these pressures and challenges opens opportunities to use the reactive nitrogen nutrient more carefully. Time has come to effectively recover used nitrogen from secondary resources and to upgrade it to a legal status of fertilizer. Organic nitrogen is a slow‐release fertilizer, it has a factor of 2.5 or higher economic value per unit nitrogen as fertilizer and thus adequate technologies to produce it, for instance by implementing photobiological processes, are promising. Finally, it appears wise to start the integration in our overall feed and food supply chains of the exceptional potential of biological nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen produced by the nitrogenase enzyme, either in the soil or in novel biotechnology reactor systems, deserves to have a ‘renaissance’ in the context of planetary governance in general and the increasing number of people who desire to be fed in a sustainable way in particular.
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spelling pubmed-98033322023-01-04 How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma? Matassa, Silvio Boeckx, Pascal Boere, Jos Erisman, Jan Willem Guo, Miao Manzo, Raffaele Meerburg, Francis Papirio, Stefano Pikaar, Ilje Rabaey, Korneel Rousseau, Diederik Schnoor, Jerald Smith, Peter Smolders, Erik Wuertz, Stefan Verstraete, Willy Microb Biotechnol OPINION Nitrogen is the most crucial element in the production of nutritious feeds and foods. The production of reactive nitrogen by means of fossil fuel has thus far been able to guarantee the protein supply for the world population. Yet, the production and massive use of fertilizer nitrogen constitute a major threat in terms of environmental health and sustainability. It is crucial to promote consumer acceptance and awareness towards proteins produced by highly effective microorganisms, and their potential to replace proteins obtained with poor nitrogen efficiencies from plants and animals. The fact that reactive fertilizer nitrogen, produced by the Haber Bosch process, consumes a significant amount of fossil fuel worldwide is of concern. Moreover, recently, the prices of fossil fuels have increased the cost of reactive nitrogen by a factor of 3 to 5 times, while international policies are fostering the transition towards a more sustainable agro‐ecology by reducing mineral fertilizers inputs and increasing organic farming. The combination of these pressures and challenges opens opportunities to use the reactive nitrogen nutrient more carefully. Time has come to effectively recover used nitrogen from secondary resources and to upgrade it to a legal status of fertilizer. Organic nitrogen is a slow‐release fertilizer, it has a factor of 2.5 or higher economic value per unit nitrogen as fertilizer and thus adequate technologies to produce it, for instance by implementing photobiological processes, are promising. Finally, it appears wise to start the integration in our overall feed and food supply chains of the exceptional potential of biological nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen produced by the nitrogenase enzyme, either in the soil or in novel biotechnology reactor systems, deserves to have a ‘renaissance’ in the context of planetary governance in general and the increasing number of people who desire to be fed in a sustainable way in particular. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9803332/ /pubmed/36378579 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.14159 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Microbial Biotechnology published by Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle OPINION
Matassa, Silvio
Boeckx, Pascal
Boere, Jos
Erisman, Jan Willem
Guo, Miao
Manzo, Raffaele
Meerburg, Francis
Papirio, Stefano
Pikaar, Ilje
Rabaey, Korneel
Rousseau, Diederik
Schnoor, Jerald
Smith, Peter
Smolders, Erik
Wuertz, Stefan
Verstraete, Willy
How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?
title How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?
title_full How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?
title_fullStr How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?
title_full_unstemmed How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?
title_short How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?
title_sort how can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?
topic OPINION
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9803332/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36378579
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.14159
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