The Research On Effects Of Fertilizer Industry Policy On Grain Production In China

Ensuring national food security is a fundation for promoting economic development and maintaining social stability. China’s success in growing enough food to feed20%of the world’s population with only9%of the world’s arable land is depending on massive use of chemical fertilizers. Therefore, our central government introduced a package of policies to promote the production and application of chemical fertilizers. However, the problem of excessive ues of fertilizers is becoming more unfavourable in the process of grain production with the rapid development of intensive grain production, which is not only decreased the crop yield, but also had caused sever damage to the ecological environment. In this thesis, the historical development of China’s grain production and fertilizer industry policies are reviewed by using national statistical data, cultural data and household survey data. Meanwhile, the problems of China’s grain production and fertilizer industry policies are analyzed. Finally, some key viewpoints of nutrient management in addressing China’s future food security are proposed. The main conclusions are as follows:(1) Currently, the advantages of three major grain producing regions in promoting grain productions were becoming more prominent, during2004-2011, the major grain producing regions contributes90.6%to100MT net increase of grain production in the country.As China’s rising demand for food, the pressure of boosting grain production in major grain producing areas will be increased. At the same time, the effect of crop yield on promoting grain production gradually diminished. During period1978-1984and period1984-1998, the yield improvement contributed127%and96.1%respectively to100MT net increase of grain production, but during2004-2011, the contribution ratio of yield improvement to the grain production increase decreased to54.5%, which indicated that the increasing agricultural materials, especially chemical fertilizer inputs was playing less important role for improving crop yield.(2) The nutrient incrase-oriented fertilizer industry policy was playing a great role in promoting the production and application of chemical fertilizers in China. In2011, the total amount of fertilizer industry subsidy was up to157billion RMB, equivalents to2480yuan/t of fertilizer nutrients, which makes fertilizer prices reduced by22.4%averagely, saving30.8%of the fertilizer costs in grain production. Meanwhile, the relatively low price of chemical fertilizer makes farmers lack of economic incentive to use organic nutrients, which is not only caused the organic resource waste, also caused environmental polllution.(3) According to the current situation of costs and benefits of China’s grain production, the net income of farmers rely only on grain production is5586yuan/year, slightly above the income level of poor urban households. At the same time, the lower comparative benefits of grain production make the phenomenon of concurrent business of farmer households more widespread. Currently, the net income from grain production is only23.3%. The problem of farmer household’s concurrent business is leading to extensive management in grain production which reduced the fertilizer efficiency of grain production in China.(4) The application of nutrient management measures can improve the crop yield and fertilizer efficiency by30%-50%simultaneously, which provides a solution to mitigate environmental pressures and increase the grain production. Also, improving the fertilizer efficiency is conducive to raise the theoretical critical value of price ratio of fertilizer and grain products, which helps increase grain production. At the same time, the application of nutrient management measures can raise the income of grain production farmers by52.4%, and the policy cost of implementing nutrient management mensures is relatively smaller than other policy measures. Moreover, imporving grain production through nutrient management is more in line with the current situation of China’s grain production.At present, the food security issues are not prominent in China, and grain production is in a balance state of supply and demand. However, with the increasing population pressure, household income level as well as rapid urbanization, China need more grain to feed her people. In addition, problems such as soil degradation, water shortages, constraints on improving crop yield, and lower enthusiasms of farmers to grow grain crops will exert great challenge to China’s grain production. The question like how can the growing Chinese population be fed in a sustainable way of grain production has become the top priority in the national policy agenda. Current food production in China is not fully played out of its capacity; there is still great room for improving crop yield. Adopting integrated nutrient management technologies or measeures can further promote grain production in future. Therefore, adjustment must be made at the policy and technical levels in China to promote sustainable development of grain production.