Fertilizer utilization rate of three major food crops: Rice, corn and wheat in China

Zeng Yande, director of the planting Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, revealed at a news conference on the 2nd that China has carried out zero growth in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in recent years, and the utilization rate of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has increased steadily. According to scientific estimates, the utilization rate of chemical fertilizers for China's three major grain crops, rice, corn and wheat, was 35.2 percent in 2015, an increase of 2.2 percentage points over 2013, and the utilization rate of pesticides was 36.6 percent, 1.6 percentage points higher than in 2013.

"the 2.2 percent increase in fertilizer utilization alone is equivalent to reducing nitrogen emissions by 478000 tons in two years and reducing farmers' investment by 1.8 billion yuan." Zeng Yande analyzed that the utilization rate of pesticides has increased by 1.6 percent, the use of pesticides has been reduced by 15200 tons, and farmers have reduced their production investment by about 800 million yuan.

Zeng Yande pointed out that compared with developed countries, there is still a big gap in the utilization rate of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in China. At present, the nitrogen use efficiency of food crops in the United States is about 50 percent, and that of food crops in major European countries is about 65 percent, which is 1530 percentage points higher than that in China. In developed countries in Europe and the United States, the utilization rate of pesticides in wheat, corn and other food crops is 50% to 60%, which is 1525 percentage points higher than that in China. In the future, the Ministry of Agriculture will solidly carry out the "Action on Zero growth in Chemical Fertilizer use by 2020" and "Action on Zero growth in Pesticide use by 2020" to speed up the transformation of fertilizer and drug use methods and the promotion of new and efficient fertilizers and pesticides. We will speed up the development of social service organizations and further improve the utilization rate of chemical fertilizers and agriculture.