Question

What are the role of pulses in reducing water and carbon footprint?

Answer 1

Pulses utilize soil bacteria to draw nitrogen from the air. This natural process replaces the need to add nitrogen fertilizers in pulse crops, which means pulses use half the energy inputs of other crops.

When soil is fertilized with nitrogen in the form of manure, fertilizer, or crop residue, soil micro-organisms convert some of this nitrogen into nitrous oxide, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) and represents around 46% of the greenhouse gas emissions from global agriculture1.

Since greenhouse gas emissions related to crop production are largely driven by nitrogen fertilizers, nitrogen-fixing pulse crops have a lower carbon footprint compared to other crops.