4R nutrient stewardship promotes the achievement of social, economic and environmental goals.
Some commonly identified grower objectives that promote the sustainable nature of 4R nutrient stewardship include the following:
Economic Goals
- Improve net farm income.
- Contribute to improved regional economic development.
Social Goals
- Improve the quality of farm family housing, diet and education.
- Improve productivity of farm labor by appropriate use of emerging technologies that increase efficiencies of field operations and reduce costs per unit of crop harvested.
- Improve access to sources of information to assist in farm management decision making.
Environmental Goals
- Maintain or reduce unwanted losses of nutrients to the environment:
- Reduce soil erosion of nutrient containing soil particles;
- Reduce volatile ammonia (NH3) emissions;
- Reduce nitrification / de-nitrification losses of nitrous oxide (N2O) and di-nitrogen (N2).
- Reduce energy use per harvested unit of farm production.
- Improve recycling of crop nutrients from crop residues and livestock manures.