Haber-Bosch isn't exactly a household name, but half the world's population depends on it for their survival.

The Haber-Bosch process is an industrial activity that produces nitrogen to act as fertiliser for plants, increasing crop yields and productivity.

But man-made nitrogen comes with a hang-up — its use causes environmental havoc.

Dr. James N. Galloway, Associate Dean at the University of Virginia, was recently in Bermuda to give a lecture at the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Sciences (BIOS) about this nitrogen dilemma.

He is no stranger to BIOS as he has been on the BIOS board since 1982 and was president of the board for seven years.

"Natural supplies of nitrogen to grow food have been inadequate since the beginning of the twentieth century," said Dr. Galloway. "The Haber-Bosch process, invented in the early 20th century, now provides a virtually inexhaustible supply of nitrogen fertiliser.

"This one invention is responsible for the existence of about half of the world's population. That's the good news.

"The other news is that most of this nitrogen (and additional amounts from fossil fuel combustion) is lost to the environment where it contributes to smog, greenhouse effect, ecosystem eutrophication, acid rain and loss of stratospheric ozone in a sequential manner called the 'Nitrogen Cascade'."

He said the challenge was to optimise the use of nitrogen to provide food for the world's peoples, yet minimise the negative consequences on the environment.

"A key challenge is how scientists communicate the issues concerning nitrogen to both the public and to policy makers," he said.

Dr. Galloway is the co-winner of the 2008 Tyler Prize for environmental achievement. He is also the founding chair of the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI).

INI had its beginnings at the First International Nitrogen Conference, held in The Netherlands.

The need for such an organisation was further articulated at the Second International Nitrogen Conference, in Maryland, three years later. The unanimous view of the 400 participants was that some type of international programme was required to optimise the benefits of nitrogen, and minimise associated problems.

"We now have as much nitrogen fertliser as the planet would ever need," Dr. Galloway said. "The bad news is — the dilema — all the nitrogen used to grow food is lost to the environment, either during the food production process or after someone consumes food when it is lost in the form of human waste."

He said the challenge was to find a way to feed the world's people and protect the environment.

He said there were several solutions to the problem. "Generally speaking, we can be more efficient in getting nitrogen into crops," he said. "We also have to think about how we apply fertilisers, the type of fertilisers, and the timing of fertiliser application."

He said we also had to think about the types of animals we ate.

"If you calculate the amount of nitrogen on a per kilogramme basis that an animal loses to the environment during its growth, fish and chicken, and eggs are better low impact foods relative to nitrogen. Pork is somewhere in the middle.

"Beef is the highest impact food. That means you release more nitrogen to the environment through beef production than poultry production. It is what we feed the animals and the kind of animals we eat."

He said it was also about how we handle human and animal waste.

"All these have large amounts of nitrogen in them," he said. "We also put nitrogen into the environment by burning fossil fuels.

For more information go to www.initrogen.org