With the growing population, sustainable feeding is a grand challenge especially in regions that rely on small holder farming. China is among the leading countries in the agricultural sector worldwide. However, this success is majorly attributed to its history of fertilizer over-use in an attempt to keep pace with growing population (Pleasant, 2018). Research indicates that on average, Chinese farmers use 305 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare annually, a value that is four times the global average (Harris, 2018). Therefore China contributes significantly to the increased usage of fertilizers in the world. In conjunction with other agricultural practices such as monoculture, the overuse of fertilizers has serious consequences on the environment and agriculture itself. Monoculture is an agricultural practice that involves the growth of the same crop on the same piece of land, season after season, for a long period of time thus resulting in lower soil fertility. In an attempt to compensate for the reduced soil fertility, farmers resort to applying excessive quantities of chemical fertilizers to achieve the desired higher yields.
Unfortunately, chemical fertilizers are often detrimental to the ecosystem, In particular, 1.2 million tons of nitrous oxide is released annually (Harris, 2018). Since nitrous oxide is reported to be 260 times more potent that carbon dioxide, as a greenhouse gas, its release from fertilizers globally contributes immensely to climate change. In this regard, farmers are increasingly adopting sustainable agricultural methods to enhance productivity while also minimizing emission of greenhouse gases. The effectiveness of environment-friendly farming techniques is portrayed by China’s efforts of reducing fertilizer use while still achieving high productivity. This paper aims at analysis how the adoption of new region-specific management practices by millions of Chinese farmers has led to the cut in the use of fertilizer, reduced greenhouse emissions while still achieving increased crop yields.
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Global Warming and Climate Change Potential of Fertilizer Use in Agriculture
To begin with, is important to understand how fertilizers contribute emission of greenhouse gases, global warming and climate change. Fertilizers contain nitrogen which results in both short term and long term effects on global warming and climate change, mainly due to its effect on the global nitrogen cycle ( Fagodiya, Pathak Kumar, Bhatia & Jain, 2017) . As the most limiting nutrient that controls the primary production of fertilizers in the agricultural sector, the use of fertilizers especially the artificial ones has impeding effects on the ecosystem. In spite of the potential effects of fertilizer use, intensively cultivated system need application of nitrogen-based fertilizers to increase food production in order to sustain the growing population. Research indicates that the consumption of fertilizer nitrogen has been on the upsurge worldwide from approximately 12 Tg in 1960 to about 113 Tg in 2010 ( Fagodiya et al., 2017) . With such trends in the nitrogen consumption, there is higher possibility that the higher amounts of fertilizer nitrogen will be used to enhance food production for the growing population that is estimated to rise by 2 billion by 2050. Scientifically, the global warming effects of fertilizer use stems from various stages of the nitrogen cycle which include, nitrogen fixation, nitrification, assimilation, ammonification and denitrification ( Fagodiya et al., 2017) . The process results in reduction and oxidation of various nitrogen compounds which affect the climate system when emitted to the environment.
In particular, the oxidation of nitrogen leads to the formation of nitrous oxide, one of the greenhouse gases. The other greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide and methane. It is also important to note that the energy intensive fertilizer production process can also contribute to carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Besides emission of nitrous oxide, the use of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture leads to increased emission of ammonia and methane. The latter impacts global warming through the formation of ozone layer. On the other hand ammonia is oxidized by the atmospheric air leading to the formation of organic aerosols. Moreover, the use of nitrogen fertilizer contributes to the net primary productivity with increased fixation of carbon dioxide in the terrestrial system Moreover, the transportation process of the fertilizers from the production plants to the farms has substantial impact on the emission of carbon dioxide. Therefore, addition of nitrogen fertilizer to agricultural soil alters the rates of greenhouse gases.
Nonetheless, of all the greenhouse gases, emission of nitrous oxide poses a major concern since the component is extraneous to the fertilizer production process. Besides, the plausibility of nitrogen oxide release from artificial fertilizers relates to its higher global warming potential (GWP) which is approximately 310 times that of carbon dioxide. Also, when emitted in the atmosphere, nitrous oxide, has a long atmospheric lifetime of about 116 years and poses high global temperature change potential of 290 based on 100-year period ( Fagodiya et al., 2017) . The aforementioned factors indicates that artificial fertilizers might directly or indirectly impact on global warming, cooling and climate change in general. Moreover, when such fertilizers are used, there is an increasing likelihood for nitrogen to enter in the water sources, and formation of acids as mentioned above results in acidification of soil which in turn affects agricultural outputs.
Agricultural Mechanisms in China
China’s vast population constitutes approximately twenty percent of the global total. However, China has been able to feed its growing population from its meager agricultural sources. The success has been majorly attributed to the increase in food production, especial grains such as wheat, maize and rice (Pleasant, 2018). Factors such as technical progress and political will on land distribution, the use of adequate inputs have significantly enhanced the food production capacity in China which aligns with implementation of the agricultural policy that encouraged the production of cereals by farmers to meet local demand. In essence agricultural policies in china are fueled by the desire to modernize agriculture and the need to maintain self-reliance and maintain food security (Pleasant, 2018). Agricultural policies such as the self-reliance policy have enhanced bumper harvest, in spite of the government role in supporting agriculture.
The aforementioned effects of fertilizer use indicate the need for regulating fertilizer use. The government of China has played a vital role in supporting research projects aimed at providing agricultural solutions. For instance, the decade-long study of 2005-2015 provided on how the reduction in fertilizer use enhanced higher crop yields using evidence-based recommended mechanisms (Cui et al, 2018). Millions of Chinese farmers reaped greatly from the massive agricultural study that led to an increase in the amount of rice, wheat and maize production by approximately 11%. Besides, the recommended mechanisms led to the reduction in fertilizer use by 15% per crop, thus saving about 12 million tonnes of nitrogen which could have been released in the environment. As discussed earlier, a reduction in nitrogen content aligns with reduction in greenhouse gases, particularly nitrous oxide which contributes greatly to the global warming and climate change. Generally, the combination of greater yields and reduced levels of fertilizer resulted in the total economic savings of about $12.2 billion for the farmers (Harris, 2018).
Efforts channeled towards reduced fertilizer use included the adoption of technological tools for designing management practices that were packaged into the field recommendations. The technologies were comprehensive and focused mainly on the key crop parameters such as soil, water and required nutrients (Cui et al 2018). Besides, the technologies were adaptive to suit the diversified biophysical conditions. A broad scope of literature highlights that within the era of modernization, technological advancement has facilitated the growth of agricultural sector through the implementation of comprehensive and adaptable scientific tools (Cui et al 2018). Similarly to the china’s case, tools such as isotope tracers are used to assess the quality of soil, the nitrogen content and the impact of integrated farming. For instance, through the nitrogen-15 techniques researches can observe, over a certain period of time, the amount of the isotope that is absorbed by the plant. Adoption of such inventions in China, aid in determining the exact amount of fertilizer that farmers need to apply to the crops thus alleviating excessing release of nitrogen to the soil and its detrimental effects on the ecosystem. Besides, carbon- 13 is under for assessment of soil quality. Since, soil is an essential requirement in crop production, understanding the status of soil fertility is crucial for farmers to ensure optimal application of the proposed agricultural practices.
Cui et al (2018) indicate that through nationally coordinated efforts, the 10-year study encouraged 20.9 million smallholder farmers to adopt enhanced management technologies that would enhance greater yields and reduced environmental emissions. China’s ISSM framework entail a crop module that guided farmers on crop strategies such as crop variety, planting dates and density three main cereals, namely, maize, wheat and rice through the optimization of thermal and solar resources in the different regions Moreover, a resource supply module focused on the formulation of nutrient and water applications with regards to soil tests and the needs of the growing crops. Contrary to the conventional methods of farming, the evidence-based enhanced recommendations increased across China’s major agro-ecological zones including subtropical, frigid, arid, semiarid and humid. Therefore estimating planting dates and density of crops corresponds with China’s current agricultural practices of managing fertilizer timing and optimizing fertilizer use respectively.
Crop variety is one of the strategy that has facilitated China’s move to reduced fertilizer use, increased productivity and reduced emission of greenhouse gases. On the contrary, monoculture is an agricultural practice that involves the growth of the same crop on the same piece of land, season after season, for a long period of time thus resulting in lower soil fertility (Pleasant, 2018). Crop variety aligns with crop rotation, an approach has been proven to improve agricultural soils through the increase in circulation of carbon content in the soil. Moreover certain plants such as legumes have bacteria in their roots that converts the nitrogen captured from artificial fertilizers into organic forms which can be utilized by other plants especially cereals. Therefore, adoption of crop variety strategy in china promotes higher yields while maximizing on the fertilizer’s ability to enhance resilience of crops to climate variations and thus improving crop yields
The study by Cui et al (2018) indicated that implementation of evidence-based agricultural technologies through agricultural strategies such as crop variety, plant density and determined planting dates resulted in annual reduction in fertilizer use, carbon dioxide and reactive nitrogen losses by 8.5%, 7.6% and 16.0% respectively as well as increase in maize, rice and wheat productivity. However, reduction in fertilizer use necessitates a change in the farmer’s agricultural behavior in China which requires more to the evidence-based scientific tools. Collaborative efforts from various stakeholders are essential for building trust, participatory innovation and developing human participation. In china, such goals are achieved through providing training programs for progressive farmers to improve their problem-solving skills, enhancing such farmers to guide fellow villagers and giving small holder farmers a collective voice to marketing their products and bargain for purchases through fostering farmer cooperatives. Besides it is crucial to build coherence among farming communities and empower farmers to air their views through local agricultural policies. The above factors are relevant considerations for China’s farmers to effectively implement strategies that would reduce fertilizer user and emission of greenhouse gases while still improving crop yield.
Impact of China’s Agricultural Approach on Other Countries
Through the use of science and technology, China’s approach of implementing evidence-based enhanced agricultural methods such as better targeted planting time, crop placement and crop variety proved to be effective in reducing fertilizer use which in turn reduced nitrogen losses while still maintaining high crop yields. Unlike many developing countries, China has a centrally-controlled government which is capable of implementing policies across the whole country. Therefore, although it may not be easy to replicate China’s results elsewhere, other countries should consider implementation of policies that would foster increased agricultural productivity while sustaining human population and the ecosystem. Campbell et al (2017) indicates that agriculture contributes to the destabilization of the earth system at the planetary level through various planetary boundaries such as biogeochemical flows where nitrogen use is categorized. Contrary to the proposed 35 million tonnes planetary boundary for the amount of nitrogen removed from the atmosphere for human use, total global agricultural anthropogenic use is approximately 187 million tonnes per year, with the main drivers for the exceeding value being the growing demand for nitrogen in agriculture and the low use-efficiencies. (Campbell et al., 2017). Apparently, such anthropogenic uses lead to more nitrogen release to the environment as compared to natural terrestrial processes thus causing air, water and soil pollution and biodiversity loss. Therefore, besides the economic value of agriculture, countries should prioritize the implementation of sustainable agricultural practices that would reduce nitrogen losses to the environment and prevent further escalation of the already exceeding planetary boundaries that threatens survival of living organisms on earth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, such study findings are of importance to farmers since they highlight the transformative agenda in the agricultural sector not only in China but across borders. Although, it’s impossible to stop the use of fertilizers, there is need for minimizing the use of fertilizers and enhancing adoption of agricultural practices that will fuel the mitigation of nitrous oxide release into the atmosphere and other greenhouse gases. Therefore, modernized sustainable agricultural practices continue to be the central focus for many research projects aimed at providing cost-effective solutions that would boost productivity while combating climate change.
References
Campbell, B. M., Beare, D. J., Bennett, E. M., Hall-Spencer, J. M., Ingram, J. S., Jaramillo, F., & Shindell, D. (2017). Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth system exceeding planetary boundaries. Ecology and Society , 22 (4).
Cui, Z.et al. (2018). Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature25785 .
Fagodiya, R. K., Pathak, H., Kumar, A., Bhatia, A., & Jain, N. (2017). Global temperature change potential of nitrogen use in agriculture: A 50-year assessment. Scientific reports , 7 , 44928.
Harris, B. (2018, March 26). China cut fertilizer use and still increased crop yields. This is how they did it. Retrieved from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/this-is-how-china-cut-fertilizer-use-and-boosted-crop-yields/
Pleasant, M. (2018). Cereal Production Policies in Selected African and Asian Countries: Lessons for the SADC Region.
