Phosphate is not radioactive waste

There is currently a lot to do with regard to the nutritional element phosphate. Everything that has to do with it must be reduced: the amount in animal feed, the fertilization standards and recently the Dutch cattle population. They pretend it's nuclear waste, and somehow that's true.

"Phosphate is really just indispensable plant food, which is badly needed to be able to grow decent yields of fodder and food crops. Fertilizers and also plant protection products are denounced. This makes it seem as if we think it is about nuclear waste," says the argument of one present at the meeting 'Precision fertilization, cornerstone of the cycle' in Jan Nieuwenhuizen's country shop in Zevenhoven.

Defamation of fertilizer
About 40 dairy farmers, contractors and advisers gathered for the various speakers at this theme meeting. The common thread of the meeting was site-specific fertilization, or precision fertilization, in open cultivation (focused on grass and maize, in view of the public).

Many new concepts and techniques were reviewed. Mainly based on the fact that fertilizer (liquid or granulated) should be optimally integrated with animal manure. Precision fertilization ensures that the detested fertilizer is turned into clean plant food. In addition, it plays a large part in the farmer's corporate social responsibility.

Smart technologies (NIR, robotization, GPS and sensor) and smart fertilizers offer the dairy farmers who grow roughage a good story to the ignorant citizenry. That group now thinks that phosphate and nitrogen are poisons. And yet the farmer feels that it will never be enough. "Customers have impossible sustainability requirements," a dairy farmer reported during the meeting.

Rapid economic recovery
Mineral fertilizers (nitrogen, potassium and phosphate), packaged in a scatterable granule and readily available to the plant, made a major contribution to current crop production levels and quality after World War II. In this way, the Netherlands was able to flourish economically relatively quickly after difficult times. Through advancing insight, together with many practical studies, it gradually becomes clear that it mainly lies in the application of the fertilizer.

According to Leo Tjoonk, senior knowledge coordinator forage cultivation at Agrifirm Plant, there are also opportunities in measuring the soil. "A soil analysis offers an opportunity to improve the variation. If the mineral requirement can be mapped, then targeted fertilization can be applied to make the soil fertility uniform. This saves on supplementing via fertilizer and so you get more out of it. "You also get uniform, good quality silage grass, which gives no selection at the feeding fence. Constant quality gives a better rumen function and higher cow health."

Emotion through story FrieslandCampina
FrieslandCampina, the dairy cooperative with 19.000 members, also explained how it views future developments. Guus van Laarhoven, program leader for biodiversity at FrieslandCampina, indicated that the mission 'Creating value in a changing world' is a good goal, but that the game is often played at the cutting edge. Aligning nature management, circular production, animal welfare and CO2 emissions requires a lot of energy from the company and its suppliers.

It is a global event with major interests and major customers (such as Unilever and McDonalds). These types of companies demand high-quality milk and have high sustainability requirements. “To achieve this, we must, together with the dairy farmers, opt for an integrated approach that suits each individual company. It is certainly complex,” says Van Laarhoven.

The FrieslandCampina story evokes emotion in the audience. The media indirectly provides a constant stream of new, stricter rules and legislation. Politicians and other policymakers have little or no feeling for the agricultural sector and, like the ignorant citizen, allow themselves to be influenced and taken over by the reporting and censorship of the media. Further development and craftsmanship is no guarantee for the farmer for healthy business operations and continuity of the perfect food supply. Unfortunately. And just to be clear: phosphate is not a poison, but the core of life. Our life!      

Pascal Phillips

Pascal Philipsen is regional manager for the South of the Netherlands and fertilization specialist at Timac Agro Nederland.

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