Feeding the soil puts food on your plate / : Engraissement des sols nourrit la population

The growth in fertilizer use, especially nitrogen, was not the result of an increase in the number of farms reporting the use of commercial fertilizers. [...] The combination of the two scenarios, offers some explanation as to why the overall intensity of commercial fertilizer use looks to have levelled off at around 70% of all croplands. [...] The Prairie provinces, known as Canada’s breadbasket since they harvest the majority of the country’s grain, reported the majority of fertilized areas in 2010 with 84.5% of total commercial fertilized areas. [...] The practice of liming was most common in the Atlantic provinces and in Quebec. [...] Manure – the natural fertilizer Manure is a natural fertilizer whose benefits include adding nutrients and organic matter to the soil, while reducing the use of chemical fertilizers.