The future of fertilizers is efficiency, not volume

For decades, modern agriculture has followed a simple logic: increasing inputs to improve yield. Fertilizers have been central to sustaining global food production under this model.

Today, this approach faces growing pressure. Recent BBC reporting shows how rising energy costs, geopolitical instability, and logistics disruptions drive volatility in global fertiliser markets and place increasing pressure on farm profitability. At the same time, regulatory initiatives such as the EU Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy, combined with more extreme environmental conditions that affect crop productivity, heighten the need for more sustainable and efficient nutrient management practices.

In this context, the challenge moves beyond securing fertiliser supply. It focuses on how effectively you use nutrients. Improving nutrient use efficiency (NUE) therefore becomes increasingly important. Fertiliser formulation plays a key role, as it directly influences nutrient availability and uptake.

Why nutrient efficiency remains a major challenge

Studies from the FAO show that less than 50% of applied nitrogen and only around 15% of phosphorus are ultimately taken up by crops. Much of the remaining nutrient content never reaches the plant and may instead:

  • Leach into water or volatilise into the air

  • Become immobilised in the soil, such as through phosphorus fixation

  • Remain unavailable due to soil–plant interactions

From a formulation perspective, these losses reflect limitations in nutrient availability, mobility and uptake under real field conditions. To compensate, growers often increase fertilizer application rates, raising both production costs and environmental impact.

To address these challenges, Nutrient Use Efficiency (NUE) has become a critical performance parameter for fertilizer formulations, particularly in nutrient-deficient soils and under reduced fertilizer input systems. Under these conditions, biostimulants that improve nutrient uptake and utilisation can deliver significant agronomic value by helping crops make more effective use of available nutrients. High NUE improves nutrient conversion, reduces losses, and supports more consistent crop performance, while low NUE leads to inefficient input use and higher required application rates.

Reduced fertilizer use is becoming increasingly common in several regions due to both economic and regulatory pressures. In parts of Asia, rising urea costs and supply instability are limiting nitrogen fertilizer use, while in Europe, stricter nitrogen regulations mean that some crops are effectively grown below optimal fertilization levels.

The focus is therefore shifting from nutrient quantity toward nutrient effectiveness, where biostimulants may play an important role by helping crops maintain productivity under reduced-input systems through improved nutrient uptake and utilisation.

Improving nutrient use efficiency through formulation strategies

Addressing these NUE challenges requires more than conventional nutrient delivery approaches. Increasingly,  formulation strategies are increasingly designed to improve nutrient availability within the soil–plant system under real field conditions.

Biostimulants represent an important approach. Depending on their mode of action, they can:

  • Support root system development and soil exploration

  • Enhance nutrient solubilization, particularly for phosphorus

  • Influence nutrient uptake and nutrient assimilation pathways, including nitrogen

For formulators, this creates new opportunities to develop performance-driven fertilizer solutions that:

  • Deliver higher nutrient availability per unit applied

  • Improve consistency across variable agronomic conditions

  • Support compliance with increasingly strict environmental regulations

  • Integrate efficiently into existing production processes

As fertilizer markets continue shifting towards efficiency-focused solutions, formulation performance becomes an increasingly important differentiator.

TowardS more efficient fertilization systems

Fertilizers remain essential to agricultural productivity. However, economic, environmental and regulatory pressures are accelerating the shift toward more efficient fertilization systems.

For the fertilizer industry, improved nutrient utilisation is no longer solely an agronomic objective. It is a key factor that defines product performance and differentiation. Solutions that enhance how plants access, absorb, and use nutrients therefore play a growing role in formulation strategies.

In this context, nutrient use efficiency technologies are becoming an integral part of advanced fertilizer formulations. Targeted solutions such as Activance® NUE illustrate how specific components can support nutrient uptake and utilisation while remaining compatible with existing production and application processes.

 As the market evolves, the ability to improve performance while reducing input requirements will become increasingly important for next-generation fertilizer products.