Comparison of fertilizer use efficiency in grain production between developing countries and developed countries

Abstract

BACKGROUND The investigation of chemical fertilization intensity (FI) and efficiency can provide basal data for decision‐making in food production and environmental impact assessments of fertilization. The present study aimed to compare trends of the FI and efficiency during 1961–2018 in developed and developing countries using a simple method. RESULTS The FI in China increased rapidly from approximately 5 kg ha−1 in 1961 to the highest value of 282 kg ha−1 in 2014, and then decreased to approximately 231 kg ha−1 in 2018. Although the fertilizer allocation efficiency (FAE) showed a slight downward trend, a slight upward trend was observed for fertilizer integrated efficiency (FIE). FIs in India, Iran and Turkey continuously increased from 5 kg ha−1 in 1961 to 116, 49(148 in 2006),120 kg ha−1 in 2018, respectively, whereas FAEs showed a significant fluctuation around horizontal direction or downward trends and their FIEs showed a slight fluctuation downward. The FIs of Britain, Germany and France, excluding USA, increased rapidly from approximately 200–400 kg ha−1 in 1960s to peaks of 430–530 kg ha−1 in 1980s, decreasing to 150–340 kg ha−1 around 2010, and then increased to the current level of 200–350 kg ha−1, whereas FAEs and FIEs increased rapidly. CONCLUSION France and Germany were found to have moderate chemical fertilizer input and the highest FIE. Thus, their experiences of ecological agricultures in both countries could provide good examples for developing countries to follow. In brief, models of FAE and FIE are an easier way of reflecting fertilizer efficiencies in developed and developing countries. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.

Analysis on the changes of fertilization intensity and efficiency in China's grain production from 1980 to 2019

“…It also allows farmers to enter the agricultural universities for the training and education of eco‐agriculture and encourages educated agricultural students of universities to work in agriculture‐related enterprises 37 . Germany proposed Agriculture 4.0 in 2015, which is a highly intensive, accurate, intelligent, cooperative, and ecological modern agricultural pattern supported by networking, big data, artificial intelligence, robotics, and other technologies 20 . The USA mainly relies on the policy of best management practices (BMPs) to reduce agricultural non‐pointsource pollution, which is a comprehensive economic incentive and environmental protection policy introduced in 1972.…”

“…Germany formulated the 'Fertilizer Application Ordinance' into national laws to implement the EU's ND in 1996, the 'Ecological Labeling Law' in 2001, and the 'Ecological Agriculture Law' in 2003, which strictly regulates the business activities of registered ecological agricultural enterprises. It also allows farmers to enter the agricultural universities for the training and education of eco-agriculture and encourages educated agricultural students of universities to work in agriculture-related 20 The USA mainly relies on the policy of best management practices (BMPs) to reduce agricultural non-pointsource pollution, which is a comprehensive economic incentive and environmental protection policy introduced in 1972. The federal government specially allocated funds to provide certain agricultural subsidies, technical support, or financial preferences to farmers who voluntarily participated in the BMPs policy system.…”

“…Based on Liu et al . 's previous work, 20 a new method was proposed to calculate the FAE which refers to the average RFP of the weighted RFP of N, P, and K fertilizers. It is called the RPPW method and the FAE formula is as follows: where RFP N , RFP P , and RFP K represent the RFP of N, P, and K fertilizers respectively.…”

Regional differences of individual and allocation efficiencies of health resources in China

“…Because the SIMOE is the efficiency of a single input corresponding to multioutputs in the perspective of input, the measurement of one input SIMOE is several related SISOEs multiplied by their proportion in all these SISOEs, respectively, then added together and raised to the power of θ. This is called the "Relative Productivity Proportion Weight" method (23)(24)(25). The empirical formula is given as follows:…”

“…The methods illustrated above for studying the allocation efficiency of health resources are relatively complex, and they fail to express the efficiency of each individual resource under the condition of "multi-input and multi-output. " Based on the concept of "Relative Productivity Proportion Weight (RPPW)" (23)(24)(25), which means that the weight of one index's relative productivity is equal to its proportion in the sum of relative productivities of all indexes involved, this paper puts forward new models simultaneously to investigate regional individual and allocation efficiencies of health resources in China under the condition of multi-input and multi-output. It tries to improve the measurement method of health resource efficiency and provides China's health institutions and administrative departments with references that would help formulate targeted policies to optimize the allocation of health resources and promote the sustainable development of health services in China.…”