Information a vital feed for fertiliser growth: Noralee Bradley
- 2 September 2024
Nutrien’s Noralee Bradley says information can help transform fertiliser mineral mining and continue to redefine precision agriculture. It can increase the public visibility of the forgotten critical minerals and ensure policymakers “connect those dots” linking them to global food security.
“It's a very complex global problem … because potash and phosphate are in certain parts of the world, the arable land is in certain parts of the world, and we need to marry those up,” says the Canadian ag-minerals major’s executive vice president, external affairs and chief sustainability and legal officer.
“And so the industry is trying to, first of all, educate people about that complexity, and then to make sure that we do have the proper education and discussions with our government, and global governments, to make sure we get efficient and timely trade flows.
“Canada has designated potash and phosphate as critical minerals. I think there’s a lot of discussion in the US about the topic and there’s different views about it.”
Bill Gates, among others, has talked up the value of fertiliser minerals, saying, “two out of every five people on Earth today owe their lives to the higher crop outputs that fertiliser has made possible”.
In terms of connecting agricultural and environmental impact ledgers, Rockefeller University director for the human environment Jesse Ausubel said at The Energy Future Forum in Washington DC in June this year information would be as vital as fertilisers to future crop yields, precision agriculture and wider land preservation.
“I never use the phrase intensification of agriculture,” Ausebel said.
“I always talk about precision agriculture and precision forestry, because it’s better weather forecasts, it’s smarter seeds, it’s more information – it could be more information about the market – that leads to higher output also better profits, I would say.
“Precision agriculture doesn’t mean using more fertiliser and more herbicide or pesticide. It means using more information so you're actually using the other inputs more intelligently, but in smaller amounts.
“In the 21st century we have the traditional resources of water, energy, land, materials, people, or personnel. But the sixth resource is information.
“What’s really changed now is that we want more bits and bytes and not more kilos and litres.
“That’s the new revolution.”
Nutrien is digitalising and automating its potash mines in Canada, where it has had its operating base for 65 years, to improve safety and operating efficiency.
The company describes a “low-cost, flexible, six-mine potash network with access to the best geology in the world”.
“In 2023, we increased our annual potash ore tonnes cut using autonomous mining technology by 40%.
“Digital technologies and access to vast amounts of data are supporting the transformation of our industry and Nutrien.
“Agriculture and food systems are undergoing technological changes driven by big data, digital connectivity, artificial intelligence and innovations in biotechnology.
“More and more the ability to collect and utilise data to drive decisions is key to maintaining an efficient and productive agricultural operation. Nutrien Ag Solutions is at the forefront of developing and tailoring local strategies supported by technology and data.
“In 2023 we measured, documented and calculated outcomes on two million sustainably engaged acres in North America, South America and Australia. We continue to provide growers with whole-acre solutions that support sustainable and productive agriculture and aim to deliver improved environmental outcomes. [Last year] we enabled emissions reductions on 900 thousand sustainably engaged acres in North America, working with growers and collaborating with 15 suppliers and downstream partners.”
Nutrien has a 2030 goal to help growers adopt “sustainable and productive agricultural products and practices” on 75 million acres globally.
“We talk about making sure we have the sustainable products that are producing the agricultural outputs and yields for today,” says Bradley.
“We touch 150 million acres around the world with our products. We have an ability to have our products deployed on many of the arable land acres in the world to make sure the yields are coming off today in a robust way. But we also see it as making sure we’re developing agricultural products and services that will allow us to have those yields into the future as well.
“That’s how we think about sustainable agricultural products. So it’s fertiliser that is better for the soil and also solutions that allow [farmers] to have better environmental outcomes for the future.
“We see technology helping us be a lot better at continuing to make our transportation, distribution and logistics network efficient so that we can be there with fertiliser and those critical minerals when the farmer needs them.
“The more efficient we are, the faster we can get the product to the farmer.
“We want to continue to be a low-cost producer and provider of these crop inputs to growers.
“Technology is going to really help us be efficient with our supply chains. That’s our internal supply chain and making sure that we continue to be as efficient as we can in our mine network, and also our [retail] network.”
Nutrien’s FARMSMART offering allows farmers to measure and track their carbon footprint, potentially access carbon trading markets, and monitor and improve soil health.
Bradley says deployment of the technology has been a “slower journey than anyone would have hoped because … it is hard to track the data and the carbon coming in and out of the soil, and also get it certified”.
“It’s part of that conversation that we want to continue to have with government,” she says.
“We need to be able to verify these outcomes under a regulatory regime that people can believe in.
“That's been slower than we had hoped, but we have gotten our first certifiable carbon credits, both insets and offsets.
“We’ve hit some good milestones with third party certifiers … so we’re hoping that that now will be an inflection point and we can advance those sustainable acres that we are targeting.
“We’ve hit [about] a million, and we’re heading to two million, and we hope that growth becomes more of a hockey stick.”
Noralee Bradley will speak at Resourcing Tomorrow 2024 on a keynote panel addressing: Phosphates and potash, the forgotten critical minerals to enhance global food security.
