Nitrogen inputs to agricultural soils from livestock manure: new statistics

The global agricultural sector today faces the double challenge of feeding a growing population while preserving the underlying natural resources of land, water and air. In the meantime, already a third of the world's soils are degraded. Soil and nutrient management techniques aimed at restoring soil health will therefore be essential to meeting these challenges. Agricultural statistics on nutrient use in agriculture provide a useful tool for countries to measure progress towards achieving these national and global development goals. This report presents the relevant statistics available at FAO to this end, and demonstrates how they can be used for a nutrient input analysis at a national, regional and global level. The data include FAOSTAT chemical and mineral fertilizers statistics integrated with estimates of livestock manure from the FAOSTAT and the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model. This report is intended for use by various audiences, including agriculturalstatistics services or agencies in relevant line ministries, academia, industry and the general public in member countries, and provides country-level reference statistics using internationally-recognized and transparent methodologies.