Davidson has joined Spark Climate Solutions, a philanthropically supported non-profit organization with a mission “to accelerate progress in under-addressed, high-impact climate mitigation and adaptation approaches”. He helped launch Spark’s Agricultural Nitrogen Transformation Program, which, as its name indicates, emphasizes the need for transformative change in food production systems. At the heart of this program is a vision we call Nitrogen2.0. With collaborators from universities, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, and the private sector, we have developed a series of manuscripts that describe the potential for innovation in cropping systems, livestock feed, and manure capture and recycling. Our 2026 AGU abstract summarizes this work:

Nitrogen 2.0: The Next Generation of Innovation in AgriFood Systems to Improve Productivity while Reducing Nitrous Oxide and Other Nitrogen Losses

Eric A Davidson^1,2, Maya Almaraz³, Maria Bowman², Charles Brooke², Edward Buckler⁴, Michael J Castellano⁵, Sheri Spiegal⁴, and Xin Zhang¹

¹University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, ²Spark Climate Solutions, ³Yale University, ⁴USDA – Agricultural Research Service, ⁵Iowa State University

Synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizer use has enabled greatly improved human nutrition, but only about 15% of N inputs to croplands is consumed by humans as plant and animal products, resulting in losses to water and air with unsustainable environmental and human health impacts. Agriculture is the dominant source of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a potent greenhouse gas and stratospheric ozone depleting substance. Increases in atmospheric N₂O are accelerating, despite decades of efforts to improve N use efficiency in croplands.

The current, mostly linear and leaky system of N use in agriculture (Nitrogen1.0) must be transformed to be more circular, targeted, and efficient, which we call Nitrogen2.0. Here, we put forward a set of linked innovations across crop and livestock systems: (1) redirecting more synthetic N to livestock; (2) retaining more N on farm through crop breeding and management; and (3) recovering and recycling more N from manure. We then present results from teams that have modeled the potential impacts of these transformations on reduced N losses and improved productivity in U.S. agriculture.

Decreasing total protein and partially replacing crop crude protein with supplemental amino acids in livestock diets could reduce total feed-N inputs and reactive N losses by ~25%. Integrating crop genetics and agronomy to avoid losses and improve on-farm N recycling in maize could increase yield by~30% per hectare, while decreasing N fertilizer inputs by ~35% per m³ harvested and decreasing nitrate and N₂O losses by ~50% per hectare. A “manureshed” strategy to advance manure handling, N-efficient animal diets, and coordinated redistribution could nearly double the fraction of manure-N available to crops, replacing up to ~25% of fertilizer-N while decreasing N losses by up to ~60%. The Nitrogen2.0 group of experts across disciplines find these innovations feasible and potentially cost-effective, and we are preparing a roadmap for the necessary research and development, policy support, and market incentives.

 

Another type of needed innovation in US agriculture that Spark is supporting is developing financial instruments that help reduce farmers’ perceived risks of reduced crop yield and profits when decreasing fertilizer application rates. Farmers are typically risk-adverse, reluctant to decrease fertilizer rates, despite evidence that they could be decreased in most years without yield penalties. The added cost of over-applying fertilizer is widely seen as cost-effective “insurance” against reduced crop yield. Mandrini et al. (2026) present a market-based nitrogen insurance concept that allows farmers who apply excess fertilizer to reduce nitrogen use without financial risk. In a related paper, Palmero et al. (2026) show that this type of incentive program could reduce N fertilization rates by 12-16% in the US Cornbelt, which would reduce N2O emissions by 10%, reduce nitrate leaching by 13% with no or only small risks of yield losses.

Palmero, F., Davidson, E.A., Guan, K. et al. 2026. Environmental and societal costs of maize production decrease by addressing the uncertainty in nitrogen rate recommendations. Nature Communications, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68988-y

Mandrini, G., E.A. Davidson, E.D. Nafziger, et al. 2026. A market-based insurance approach aligns environmental and economic outcomes in maize nitrogen management. Communications Earth & Environment, 7:26, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03008-3.