Improved Phosphorus Resource efficiency in Organic agriculture Via recycling and Enhanced biological mobilization, IMPROVE-P

Organic farming (OF) systems rely on the efficient use and recycling of available resources. Currently, some mineral nutrients like phosphorus (P) are used only once to produce food. Subsequently, they are lost due to poor recycling of organic wastes back to farmland. There is an urgent need to improve the recycling of P from urban areas and the food industry, back to cropland. The IMPROVE-P project’s overall goal is to design improved P recycling systems for OF. This includes: (a) enhanced P recycling using secondary P fertilizers as alternative P fertilizers (APF) (permitted APF: e.g. treated household or food processing waste, etc.; currently prohibited APF: e.g. incineration slags, cleaned ashes), (b) higher plant P use efficiency due to enhanced agronomic measures (e.g. P mobilization by cover cropping), and (c) improved P availability to plants by application of Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR). Both organic and inorganic sources of fertilizer P may be associated with some contamination by pollutants. Therefore, for a holistic evaluation the project aims to develop tools to determine which APF will minimize environmental damage by (d) a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the most important APF, (e) modelling the risks of soil accumulation of pollutants, and (f) development of an index value to assess APF suitability for OF. The project’s dissemination activities will target stakeholders, consumers and policy makers. BOKU will contribute by testing cover crops for improve P use efficiency and by risk assessment related to the use of APF. https://improve-p.uni-hohenheim.de/