I came across these amazing stats concerned with inputs to home gardening in the US! Although without doubt considerably less in the UK, it does make one wonder how much fertilizer and pesticides are administered to gardens here. (Then there is the question of people planting bee-friendly plants bought from a nursery, only for an unknown percentage these to have been treated with neonicotinoids, so not really helping the poor bees at all?).
“…In addition to nurturing the health and well-being of people, growing [vegetable] gardens instead of lawns could greatly reduce use of natural resources in countries that engage in such behaviors. For example, the amount of lawn in the U.S. is 40.5 million acres and the total amount of money spent on lawns is $30 billion annually. Three million tons of fertilizer is used annually on lawns. Use of nitrogen fertilizer could be cut in half by leaving clippings on lawns to build healthy soil. Over 30 thousand tons of synthetic pesticides are used on lawns annually at a cost of well over $2 billion. Over 800 million gallons of gasoline is burned annually caring for lawns. For perspective, the amount of gas spilled annually refilling gaso- line lawn mowers is 17 million gallons e 1.57 times the amount spilled by the Exxon Valdez off the shores of Alaska. Finally, resi- dential water use outside the home is 30%e60% of total water use. Depending on the estimate, 7 billion to 9 billion gallons of water are used each day for suburban irrigation.”
Sourced from the following article I happen to come across:
‘Our Landscapes, Our Livestock, Ourselves: Restoring Broken Linkages among Plants, Herbivores, and Humans with Diets that Nourish and Satiate.’
ARTICLE in APPETITE · AUGUST 2015
Impact Factor: 2.69 · DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2015.08.004
Frederick D. Provenza a, Michel Meuret b, Pablo Gregorini c.
a Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-5230, USA
b INRA, UMR868 SELMET (Mediterranean and Tropical Livestock Farming Systems), 2 Place Pierre Viala, 34060 Montpellier Cedex 1, France
c Feed and Farm Systems Group, DairyNZ, Private Bag 3221, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand