{"id":33926,"date":"2016-05-18T16:43:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T16:43:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-10-15T18:29:41","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T18:29:41","slug":"8926-farming-the-main-culprit-for-europe-s-air-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/pollution\/8926-farming-the-main-culprit-for-europe-s-air-pollution\/","title":{"rendered":"Farming – the main culprit for Europe\u2019s air pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farming<\/a>\u00a0is the biggest single cause of the worst air pollution in Europe, says a new study, which found that drifting clouds of\u00a0compounds from nitrogen-based\u00a0fertilisers and animal waste are combining with fossil fuel use\u00a0to pose a major threat to human health.<\/p>\n

The research\u00a0confirms the findings of other recent studies<\/a>\u00a0that identified air pollution from farming as a major cause of particularly bad bouts of smog seen in cities such as London and Paris.<\/p>\n

The new\u00a0research<\/a>, which was carried out by the Earth Institute at New York\u2019s Columbia University and published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, <\/em>poses major challenges to governments in developing countries, where the growing appetite for meat and dairy products has prompted a huge\u00a0increase in fertiliser-intensive agriculture and animal wastes.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo assist policy makers, it is important to connect the chemical composition and severity of particulate pollution to its sources\u2026In many densely populated areas, aerosols formed from gases that are released by fertiliser application and animal husbandry dominate over the combined contributions from all other anthropogenic [manmade] pollution,\u201d the report\u2019s authors said in a foreword.<\/p>\n

It added that emissions from agriculture\u00a0combine with the heavy pollution from cars, power stations,\u00a0factories and construction sites\u00a0to producing a highly-toxic soup that is a major cause of PM2.5.<\/a> These\u00a0tiny particles are breathed deep into the lungs and\u00a0are deemed extremely\u00a0harmful to human health.<\/p>\n

Last week the World Health Organisation said toxic air was responsible for the early deaths\u00a0of 7 million people worldwide,<\/a> particularly in the elderly and children.<\/p>\n

The Earth Institute\u00a0research cited agriculture as the single biggest contributor of manmade PM2.5 emissions in Europe US, adding that China \u201cshows the highest concentrations of agriculture-related air pollution\u201d. In India, the impact of agriculture in contributing to manmade smog was relatively low, the study added.<\/p>\n

The Columbia University study\u00a0concluded that if agriculture can shift away from ammonia-based fertilisers, then increased food production won\u2019t necessarily lead to an increase in PM2.5 emissions.<\/p>\n

While there are\u00a0alternatives to nitrogen-based fertilisers,\u00a0such as those used in organic farming, they tend to be more costly,\u00a0labour-intensive and produce less yield.<\/p>\n

The use of nitrogen-based fertilisers\u00a0is also blamed for many other major\u00a0environmental problems<\/a>, such as the erosion of soil and the poisoning of lakes, rivers and seas. The manufacture\u00a0and use of these compounds is\u00a0a major source of greenhouse gases, including the highly potent nitrous oxide.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a decisive shift away from the burning of coal in power stations and industry, and a move towards greener vehicles, would reduce the impact of pollution from farming that uses nitro-fertilisers,\u00a0mainly because all of\u00a0these sources combine to create some of the most toxic forms of smog in cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world\u2019s appetite for meat and dairy products is contributing to smog in cities, says new research<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1964,"featured_media":58715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[763,760],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"country":[],"class_list":["post-33926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-pollution"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFarming - the main culprit for Europe\u2019s air pollution | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The world\u2019s appetite for meat and dairy products is contributing to smog in cities, says new research\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/pollution\/8926-farming-the-main-culprit-for-europe-s-air-pollution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Farming - 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