Billions of people rely on artificial fertilisers to provide food on their plates, but it comes at a cost to the environment. So how do we feed the world and sustain the planet? One of the biggest drivers of the Anthropocene - the age of man - is muck. More precisely, artificial muck, in the form of fertiliser. It’s used to feed half of the world’s people, but in order to provide food for the constantly escalating number of mouths we are running the risk of irreversibly damaging the planet. Directly or indirectly, plants are the making of us. We rely on plants because we can’t metabolise the nitrogen that makes up four-fifths of the air we breathe. Nitrogen is a vital constituent of all proteins as well as other important molecules, including DNA, but we can only use nitrogen once it has been broken down and combined into a salt molecule, such as potassium nitrate, for example. See full Article.
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