fertilizer

photo of a farmer loading seed corn into the hoppers on a trailer connected to a tractor in the middle of a field

Scott Olson/Getty Images

May 7, 2026

Farmers Face a Fertilizer Crisis at Spring Planting Time

Omanjana Goswami
Interdisciplinary Scientist

photo of a green tractor pulling a trailer with spraying arms and a yellow tank of fertilizer through a field of young corn plants, under a partly cloudy sky

Katie Nichols/ACES/Flickr

April 13, 2026

The True Cost of Fertilizer Hurts Farmers—and the Rest of Us, Too

Precious Tshabalala
Economist

photo of President Trump and members of his cabinet listening to a presentation on the war with Iran in a dark room at Mar-a-Lago; Trump wears a hat with "USA" in large letters, and in the background is a US flag and a screen displaying a map of the Middle East

Daniel Torok/White House via Getty Images

March 19, 2026

What Farmers Will Pay for President Trump’s War on Iran

Omanjana Goswami
Interdisciplinary Scientist

Image of a stream on farm land in Iowa without conservation riparian buffers

Lynn Betts/USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

November 19, 2025

From Fields to Faucets: Fertilizer Overuse Threatens Drinking Water and Health

Stacy Woods
Research Director

aerial photo of two tractors spraying fertilizer on a large brown field divided into many rows; the spray drifts off to the left from a breeze

Charles O'Rear/Flickr

November 19, 2025

Half Wasted: Fertilizer Overuse, Pollution, and the Global Nitrogen Cycle

Omanjana Goswami
Interdisciplinary Scientist

satellite photo of the continental United States with the rivers of the Mississippi and Missouri watershed highlighted; all the rivers eventually drain into the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

July 31, 2025

What Do Trump’s Attacks on NOAA Have to Do with the Gulf Dead Zone?

Karen Perry Stillerman
Deputy Director

aerial photo looking down on a green tractor pulling fertilization equipment through a cornfield. The tractor's path has left a pattern of intersecting lines in the dirt.

Jacob Tosch/Porter County SWCD/USDA

March 6, 2025

Farmers Will Pay More for Fertilizer Because of President Trump’s Tariffs

Omanjana Goswami
Interdisciplinary Scientist

farm runoff

Lynn Betts/USDA NRCS

December 12, 2023

Ask a Scientist: Fighting Big Ag Pollution with Maps and Math

Elliott Negin
Former Contributor

GABRIELE ONORATO/FLICKR

October 11, 2022

How a Fertilizer Shortage Could Drive Food Prices Even Higher

Omanjana Goswami
Interdisciplinary Scientist

Map of the US highlighting the hypoxic "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico and the watershed that feeds it. Photo: NOAA

June 10, 2016

There’s Nothing Average About This Year’s Dead Zone Forecast

Andrea Basche
Former contributor

September 11, 2015

Making Big Data Bigger: Sleeker Science to Inspire Water Pollution Solutions

Marcia DeLonge
Former Contributor

July 2, 2015

What Do Algae, Corn, and Summer Vacation Have in Common?

Marcia DeLonge
Former Contributor

January 18, 2013

Drought Pits Big River against Big Ag

Karen Perry Stillerman
Deputy Director