Intelligent fertilizer heating up sharply, is it a "tuyere" or a gimmick?

Editor's note in 2013, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Administration of quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine jointly issued the "opinions on speeding up the Popularization and Application of Formula Fertilizer", proposing to make use of social resources to explore the establishment of a small-scale intelligent fertilizer supply service network in rural areas. carry out on-site intelligent mixed service to meet the personalized and small batch fertilizer needs of farmers. Since 2015, with the upsurge of "Internet +" agricultural materials, intelligent fertilizer distribution has heated up sharply, including the business transformation of large chemical fertilizer enterprises such as Sinochem and Yuntianhua, as well as Aohe soil survey and cloud farm, which rely on financial and technological advantages. there are also new platforms such as village Amoy, which has been transferred from the Internet field. Some people think that this will set off a deep reshuffle of the agricultural supply chain, while others dismiss it as a stunt for dealers to peddle fertilizers in disguise.

1. Optimists predict that it is expected to capture nearly half of the market for compound fertilizer.

On November 4th, the 2016 China "Internet +" Agricultural material Integration and Development Conference was held in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Intelligent fertilizer distribution replaced agricultural material e-commerce as the hot spot of the meeting. The participants called it "seizing the strategic commanding point of agricultural material marketing transformation", "the marketing mode change of the agricultural material industry to cope with the trend of land transfer", "Internet + 's subversion of agricultural material circulation channels driven by the Internet of things", "the road of transformation and upgrading of chemical fertilizer enterprises", "is expected to change the entire agricultural industry chain," and so on, it is likely to become the "tuyere" of the Internet.

"Intelligent fertilizer dispensing integrates the five links of soil testing and formula fertilization measurement, distribution, production, supply and application by means of the Internet." Liu Fenglei, director of soil testing and marketing operations in Beijing Aohe, said that this is to establish a field that can cover a certain planting area and integrate soil testing and fertilizer distribution, R & D and production, warehousing and distribution, agrochemical services, and other modern agricultural centers, such as soil testing laboratories, fertilizer dispensing equipment, inventory of elemental fertilizers, and agrotechnical personnel, according to farmers' different requirements for products and services. Produce personalized and functional fertilizer products.

In traditional compound fertilizer production, due to the needs of large-scale production and cost control, the formula can not be randomly adjusted to crops and plots, which is the main obstacle that soil survey data of agricultural sector can not be efficiently converted into products for many years. "the emergence of intelligent fertilizer not only breaks this bottleneck, but also forms a new agricultural material supply chain of 'mineral-elemental fertilizer plant-intelligent fertilizer distribution center-farmers', which greatly reduces the circulation cost." Chen Liang, deputy general manager of the Chemical Fertilizer Business Development Department of Sinochem, said that the intelligent fertilizer distribution station can also be regarded as a "flexible small factory". Adding or changing the formula will not bring about a change in cost, which is very advantageous.

"it is difficult to distinguish between true and false compound fertilizers of various brands on the market, and the fertilizer distribution station is made up of raw materials on the spot. Everyone knows at a glance that a bag of fertilizer with the same ratio is at least 510 yuan cheaper than conventional products. Moreover, with little fertilizer and no damage to the land, it is also high-yielding, so it is very popular with large growers. " Yongji County, Jilin City, intelligent fertilizer distribution station operator Xu Gongjun said.

"Intelligent fertilizer dispensing has two advantages: 'Internet +' and supply chain. The former realizes the analysis and application of traditional data by soil testing and sales, while the latter reduces the terminal price, improves fertilizer efficiency, and has strong market competitiveness." Liu Huaihua, founding partner of Yunchang Group, believes that this will not only have an impact on the compound fertilizer industry chain, but also may further affect or even replace simple fertilizer retailers.

Therefore, it is predicted that five years later, intelligent fertilizer is expected to grab nearly half of the market share of compound fertilizer. In 2030, the acreage of medium-sized growers in China will account for more than 30%, and intelligent fertilizer dispensing is likely to account for 30% of the retail end of chemical fertilizer.

two。 Skeptics believe that the profit model with too high cost is questionable.

In the actual operation of the intelligent fertilizer distribution station, a small number of enterprises directly use the soil composition data provided by the agricultural sector, but more enterprises tend to test the soil by themselves and take it as a starting point to carry out business and enhance customer stickiness. Now many enterprises take "one household one soil test, one household one formula" as their development direction.

"the personalized service of intelligent fertilizer distribution stations to farmers is carried out according to the soil type (grade) of cultivated land, the characteristics of crop varieties and the target yield, and enterprises or dealers are not encouraged to test the soil. The national implementation of soil testing and formula fertilization project has covered all agricultural counties, and the data of periodic soil sampling and testing every year is very rich. The county cultivated land quality evaluation system and soil testing formula fertilization expert consultation system can basically meet the query needs of soil testing formula fertilization data. " Li Rong, director of the soil and Fertilizer Department of the National Agricultural Technology extension Service Center, said that the Ministry of Agriculture is still carrying out soil testing and testing work of "one cycle every three years" according to the law of changes in soil nutrients, and timely update soil test data and fertilizer formulations.

Guo Yuesheng, head of the Fertilizer Section of the soil Fertilizer General Station in Shandong Province, believes that in theory, there may be differences in soil nutrients between households, but this difference is a numerical difference within a content grade. In fact, ordinary people can use a formula. Agricultural system through a large number of soil tests, the formulation and release of large formula has been able to meet the needs of production, and then door-to-door test is a waste of manpower and material resources.

"what is more serious is that the rapid soil testing technology of fertilizer distribution stations is somewhat questionable, and most of them are qualitative or semi-quantitative tests, which cannot be used as a basis for accurate fertilizer distribution. On the other hand, the high cost of soil testing coupled with the input of plant and equipment, how can the meagre profits from reducing circulation continue to support the promotion and operation of intelligent fertilizer distribution?

"in general, the intelligent fertilizer dispenser has five hoppers. In addition to adding nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, what should be added to the other two hoppers? How much is added? Is there a chemical reaction? All these have no unified norms and belong to the blank area of supervision. " Guo Yuesheng is worried that in order to pursue profits, some companies may arbitrarily add some worrying materials to the use of intelligent fertilizer equipment, or even produce fake and shoddy fertilizers to harm farmers.

The high price of intelligent fertilizer dispenser, the high cost of soil testing, and the difficulty of ensuring the quality of formula fertilizer have led many people to question that intelligent fertilizer dispensing is just selling fertilizer in disguise by pretending to be "Internet +" and making a mobile phone APP.

3. Let users speak-- farmers can get affordable soil and increase vitality

Sang Shengxiang, a major grain grower in Tieshan Village, Shiba Town, Mingguang City, Anhui Province, has planted 500 mu of land, which requires 24 tons of fertilizer a year. "Intelligent fertilizer distribution is a new choice, and what I am most concerned about is how many benefits I can get." He said.

Zhou Fuhong, director of the Mingguang Agricultural Technology extension Center, gave the data that the intelligent fertilizer distribution system can directly reduce the amount of fertilizer application and cost input by 10% to 30%, increase crop production by more than 5%, increase farmers' income by more than 10%, and prevent soil acidification and increase soil vitality.

"Dezhou is a major grain producing area with very little arable land per capita, and the comparative efficiency of agricultural production is on the low side. Therefore, we have made good profits by promoting simple and standardized fertilizer dispensing machines and using soil survey data from the agricultural sector. " Xu Zhengrong, director of the fertilizer distribution station management center of the New Cooperative supply and Marketing for Agricultural Service Company in Dezhou City, Shandong Province, believes that intelligent fertilizer distribution should be based on reality and be more approachable.

Zou Lei, dean of Diandou Business School, believes that the use of simple fertilizer dispensers can achieve high weight loss and high yield, while intelligent fertilizer dispensers do have the problems of high price and low market capacity. However, intelligent fertilizer distribution as a new thing, optimistic prediction and the actual situation will have a certain deviation, can not only care about the immediate gains and losses, or should look to the future development. In fact, intelligent fertilizer distribution is not only as simple as fertilizer distribution, but also through the Internet of things, monitoring crop temperature, humidity, diseases and insect pests and other growth environment indicators, so as to control watering, fertilization and spraying, provide agricultural materials, agricultural and sideline, financial, logistics and other services, will form a more ecological and intelligent business system.