Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

by Michael Shellenberger

High-yield farming produces far less nitrogen pollution run-off than low-yield farming. While rich nations produce 70 percent higher yields than poor nations, they use just 54 percent more nitrogen.30 Nations get better at using nitrogen fertilizer over time. Since the early 1960s, the Netherlands has doubled its yields while using the same amount of fertilizer.31 High-yield farming is also better for soils. Eighty percent of all degraded soils are in poor and developing nations of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The rate of soil loss is twice as high in developing nations as in developed ones. Thanks to the use of fertilizer, wealthy European nations and the United States have adopted soil conservation and no-till methods, which prevent erosion. In the United States, soil erosion declined 40 percent in just fifteen years, between 1982 and 1997, while yields rose.