Abstract
China implemented the Action Plan for the Zero Increase of Fertilizer Use in 2015, which led to a decrease in fertilizer use. However, Will fertilizer use continue to reduce? With data obtained from 2006 to 2017, the paper used the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method to analyze the scale effect, intensity effect and structural effect of fertilizer use change in China from three aspects: crops, regions and fertilizer types. Our finding suggests that (1) The intensity effect was the most critical factor affecting the decline in fertilizer use in China. (2) The sowing scale and fertilization intensity of grain, vegetables and fruits had the most significant driving effect on fertilizer reduction. (3) The three effects of each region were different in space, and the eastern region contributed most to the fertilizer decrement. (4) Nitrogen fertilizer and compound fertilizer had the most considerable influence on fertilizer reduction, especially in the sowing scale and fertilization intensity since 2009. The government should establish a fertilizer reduction management system, which includes scale control, intensity reduction, structural adjustment and other measures.
Highlights
China’s population reached 1.386 billion by 2017, accounting for 18.7% of the world’s population [1]
The fertilization intensity at the crop level is derived from the National Agricultural Product Cost-Benefit Compendium, and named after "average fertilizer input." The sown area and yield per unit area of crops in each province are from the official website of the National Bureau of statistics of China under the data set names "sown area of main crops" and "yield per unit area of main crops." Due to the lack of data, this paper considers that the fertilizing area of each fertilizer is equal and replaced by the planting area of crops, which comes from the official website of China Statistics Bureau
We found that the effect was declining in each perspective, and most of the effects changed from positive to negative, stimulating the continuous decline in fertilizer use (FU)
Summary
China’s population reached 1.386 billion by 2017, accounting for 18.7% of the world’s population [1]. For such a large community, the question of providing food is increasingly essential. China has 119,491.1 hectares of arable land, which is only 8.6% of the world’s total [2] It is an excellent feat for China to feed so many people [3, 4]. According to the data of the China Statistical Bureau, fertilizer use (FU) in China increased from 44.116 million tons in 2003 to 60.226 million tons in 2015, which accounted for more than one-third of the world’s total amount (Fig 1). The overuse of fertilizer has caused a series of harmful problems, such as low nutrient utilization rate and even soil loss [8], environmental pollution, and ecological damage [7, 9, 10]
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