Background/Question/Methods How humanity manages its complicated relationship with nitrogen and phosphorus over the coming decades will determine whether we can sustainably feed 10 billion people by 2050. While N and P are essential nutrients, their oversupply to agricultural land via manure and synthetic fertilizer has created one of the most significant environmental threats of our time. Most policies to address agricultural nutrient pollution are directly aimed at farmers and strive to change their behavior. But focusing on farmer behavior in isolation from the larger structural and cultural factors that shape it is highly problematic. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the US where adoption of nutrient best management practices is still sparse and agricultural nutrient pollution has increased over the past several decades, despite notable increases in funding for conservation practices and behaviors. A more creative governance framework that can avoid the pitfalls of farmer-focused policies is critical. Results/Conclusions The Governing Nutrient Pollution Beyond Farmers project is designing such a framework – aimed at key actors in the agri-food system beyond the farm who are capable of influencing farm-level nutrient management. More specifically, it is developing a novel set of public and private governance tools targeted towards agri-food actors up- and downstream of the farm, whose choices, products, and expectations significantly shape farmer decision-making. Doing so will shift the regulatory focus away from the farmer and thereby transform an intractable non-point source problem into a series of more manageable point source approaches. For example, new public regulatory standards on fertilizer design and performance for the fertilizer industry would give farmers little choice but to use more environmental efficient fertilizer products. And sustainable sourcing standards implemented by corporate food buyers could create private pressure on both farmers and farm input suppliers to improve nutrient management practices. The project is organized around three research components: 1) Understanding the power dynamics of the agri-food chain using systems mapping and social network analysis; 2) Designing detailed governance interventions based on specific public and private policy ideas, with a focus on design and implementation 3) Developing a decision-support tool composed of environmental, economic, social and political feasibility scores to provide policymakers a multi-faceted evaluation of different governance options This new governance framework will more accurately reflect the challenges of regulating farmer activities in the US and could lay the foundation for a new system of environmental lawmaking in the agricultural sector.
