Trade Imports Increasingly Contribute to Plant Nutrient Inputs: Case of the Finnish Food System 1996–2014

Tuure Parviainen,Juha Helenius

doi:10.3390/su12020702

Abstract

In Finland, while total agricultural production has remained relatively constant, nutrient input from industrial mineral fertilizers has declined over the past 20 years, which has been the target of environmental policies due to eutrophication risks. From 1996 to 2014, the use of nitrogen (N) declined by 18%, phosphorus (P) by 49%, and potassium (K) by 49%. However, at the same time, the international agricultural products trade has increased dramatically by mass (58%), and Finland has increased imports of food and feed products, such as, protein feeds, vegetables, and fruits. We analyzed the nutrient contents of foreign trade from 1996 to 2014 by using a substance flow analysis. We discovered that, when comparing nutrients contained in trade to the use of fertilizers, the trade of food and feed accounts for more than one-third (40%) of the fertilizer input to the Finnish food system. In 2014, 53 Gg of N, 8 Gg of P, and 15 Gg of K were imported due to trade, equating to 35%, 70%, and 45%, respectively, compared to the use of fertilizers in the food system. Declines in fertilizer inputs to crop production are partially offset by flows of plant nutrients from feed imports. In formulating agri-environmental policies targeting nutrient loading, more attention should be paid to national imports–export balances and, especially, to the spatial distribution of flows in feed trade.

Highlights

Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) are macronutrients that are basic elements, often limiting the growth of primary production in ecosystems
We discovered that, when comparing nutrients contained in trade to the use of fertilizers, the trade of food and feed accounts for more than one-third (40%) of the fertilizer input to the Finnish food system
The trade of food and feed grew 58%, by mass, in the last two decades, and the net inflow of mass rose to 1100 Gg

Summary

Introduction

Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) are macronutrients that are basic elements, often limiting the growth of primary production in ecosystems. For agricultural production purposes, these inputs have been significantly increased by human-induced action. As an example of scale, it is estimated that the human modification of the N cycle globally is almost half, 210 Tg (teragrams) N year−1, of the total 413 Tg of reactive N in the geophysical N cycle [1]. It is suggested that the human economy oversteps the boundary of the sustainable use of N nearly two-fold and that the planet has entered a new geological era, the Anthropocene, where human activity is a major driving force in geophysical cycles of inputs that are crucial to ecosystems [2,3,4,5]. The local and global growth of agricultural nutrient inputs drive considerable changes in freshwater ecosystems [6]. Leakages of nutrients in the forms of loading to waterways and, in the case of N, emissions to the air, will remain the main concerns [6]

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