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Phosphorus Flows to and from Swedish Agriculture and Food Chain

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Abstract

Phosphorus flows in Swedish agriculture and food chain were studied by material flow analysis. The system studied included agriculture, food consumption, related waste and wastewater from private households and municipal wastewater treatment plants. Swedish farmland had net annual phosphorus inputs of ~12 600 metric tons (4.1 kg P ha−1) in 2008–2010. The total import of phosphorus in food and feed to Sweden exceed imports of phosphorus in fertilizers. Despite strict animal density regulations relating to manure phosphorus content, phosphorus is accumulating on Swedish animal farms. The total quantity of manure produced greatly exceeds imported mineral phosphorus fertilizer and almost equals total phosphorus inputs to Swedish farmland.

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Fig. 1
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Notes

  1. Throughout the text ton refers to metric ton = 1000 kg.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to the Bergsten Foundation at The Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry for financial support, experts in industry and authorities for providing missing data, Rolf Spörndly for input on calculations on feed, and Ingrid Rydberg and Göte Bertilsson for remarks and encouragement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agrosystems, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SLU Alnarp, P. O. Box 104, 230 53, Alnarp, Sweden

    Kersti Linderholm & Jan Erik Mattsson

  2. Environmental Systems Analysis, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Anne-Marie Tillman

  3. Dalsjövägen 11, 784 77, Borlänge, Sweden

    Kersti Linderholm

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  1. Kersti Linderholm
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Correspondence to Kersti Linderholm.

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Linderholm, K., Mattsson, J.E. & Tillman, AM. Phosphorus Flows to and from Swedish Agriculture and Food Chain. AMBIO 41, 883–893 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-012-0294-1

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