Health concerns

Ongoing globalization and urbanization challenge the world’s ability to safeguard public health. As one of the most critical issues concerning human welfare and economic development, human health must be maintained. To secure a sustainable future, health hazards resulting from modernization, including rising consumption, have to be addressed. This in turn must involve reductions in toxic gas emissions and air pollution levels, and increases in the availability and nutritional quality of food – all areas where Yara can play a role.

Despite huge strides in science and medicine, progress in safeguarding human health remains impeded by newly identified threats, many of which are created by changes in the environment. Human health underpins all economic and social development, and is built largely on basics that many in the developed world take for granted: Access to sufficient food of adequate quality and access to clean air and water.

Health and environment are closely linked, as is health and the quality of air and water. Climate change is already affecting people across the world, with new rainfall patterns disrupting agriculture and food supply, and higher temperature and precipitation raising the risk of serious diseases. Environmental conditions affecting human health include the use of non-renewable energy, and the effects of urbanization. Air pollution in rural areas also can cause economic farm losses, jeopardizing agricultural sustainability.

The quality and accessibility of water is another health aspect. Declining levels of clean water in reservoirs around the world threaten human health and social conditions, with still more people depending on acquiring water from long distances, increasing costs and the risk of contamination. Climate change may further reduce access to clean water both for human consumption and for agriculture.

Air pollution as well as industrial spills and overuse of mineral fertilizers contributes to contamination of water resources and to so-called “acid rain,” threatening some eco-systems including food-producing fish stocks.

For a forward-looking chemical company like Yara, human health is of paramount importance in supporting world development in a sustainable direction. Yara has accumulated knowledge and developed products that allow it to reduce pollution and other health hazards connected with urban living. By developing, implementing and marketing solutions that reduce the emission of harmful substances, and at the same time offering products that enhance nutrition, Yara can help meet the global health challenge.

Plant nutrients can make a major contribution towards food production and securing food supplies. There’s a growing demand for healthier and fortified foods, and more balanced diets. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified nutrition as a key element of any strategy aimed at reducing the global burden of disease. The challenge of nutrition security, involving access to a balanced diet with all essential nutrients, was stressed by the WHO’s focus on ‘micronutrient malnutrition’ which afflicts the health of some 3 billion people worldwide. The global food industry and leading companies in the agricultural sector are working to address this challenge not least through balanced fertilization, which enables farmers to apply essential plant nutrients and to ensure crops contain specific minerals vital for human and animal health.
 
There is a growing realization that targeted fertilization may be the most effective way to provide essential micronutrients to undernourished people, or for correcting nutritional deficits in specific diets or entire populations. For Yara and the fertilizer industry, meeting the significant anticipated demand for micronutrient fertilizers and integrated products is both a challenge and an opportunity to spur progress towards better health and more sustainable agriculture. Yara’s Farming for Health initiative was launched in 2004 with the goal of supporting global nutrition security through the use of innovative plant nutrition to increase food quality. The company is developing a range of products and services designed to support farming for better health.
 

The nature of Yara’s business combined with its ambitions as industry shaper have helped develop considerable expertise in the management of toxic gases in air and wastewater. Through research and development, Yara has invested in transforming industrial knowledge into products and services that reduce emissions that present a health risk. Yara has focused particularly on combustion-related nitrogen oxides NO_x, as well as carbon dioxide CO₂, and nitrous oxide N₂O, both greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced in the fertilizer manufacturing process. Yara is fully committed to leveraging its knowledge, global presence and market position to affect ongoing improvements in these areas. 
 

For the wastewater treatment industry, Yara’s Nutriox solution eliminates and prevents the formation of hydrogen sulfide H₂S, a colorless gas that is both poisonous and corrosive.
 
All these technologies are based on the production of ammonia, urea and calcium nitrate, areas where Yara is a global leader in terms of technology, production and distribution.