Nutrient-derived environmental impacts in Chinese agriculture during 1978–2015

Structural Change and Its Impact on the Energy Intensity of Agricultural Sector in China

“…In this study, agriculture in its narrow sense is adopted and refers to the cultivation of farm crops [48]. Influenced by market demand for more commercial crops, regional comparative advantages and government policies, remarkable ASC have been witnessed in China and there are four stages of policy adjustment on agricultural structure since 1990 [9,29,49,50].…”

“…The real gross value of agricultural output grew from 111.76 billion China Yuan (CNY) to 636.09 billion CNY for the years of 1978-2016, with an average growth rate of 4.68% per year. Such growth derives not only from institutional reforms [1][2][3] and technical progress [4][5][6], but to a large extent, from rising agricultural inputs like chemical fertilizers and pesticides [7][8][9], machinery [10,11], and energy [12][13][14]. During 1991-2016, China's total power of agricultural machinery soared from 282.54 million kilowatts to 1104.99 million kilowatts; meanwhile, its consumption of nitrogen fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer, potash fertilizer, compound fertilizer, and pesticides rose from 17.26 million tons, 5 million tons, 1.74 million tons, 4.06 million tons, and 0.76 million tons to 23.11 million tons, 8.30 million tons, 6.37 million tons, 22.07 million tons, and 1.74 million tons, respectively.…”

“…The growth of these inputs drove energy consumption of agricultural production (ECAP) increase from 66.65 million tons of standard coal equivalent (Mtce) to 98.05 Mtce over this time span, because energy is used directly as fuels for agricultural machinery and indirectly as raw materials for chemical fertilizers and pesticides [15]. As a result, nearly one-quarter of global ECAP comes from the Chinese agricultural sector [9]. However, China's astonishing agricultural development has come with a price [16].…”

“…Since 1978, the main problem of China's agriculture has shifted from insufficient supply to structural disequilibrium [29]. As a direct response to changing market demand, regional comparative advantages, and government policies, China's agricultural structure has changed significantly [9,29]. The sown proportion of grain crops decreased from 78.05% in 1991 to 69.38% in 2016, while that of vegetable increased from 4.55% to 13.70%.…”

Environmental Impact and Carbon Footprint Assessment of Taiwanese Agricultural Products: A Case Study on Taiwanese Dongshan Tea

“…In the last few years, this methodology has begun to concentrate on agriculture and its affected environmental impacts, such as climate change, eutrophication, acidification, nutrients, fertilizers, and crops [14][15][16]. However, studies rarely consider the entire agricultural system, which comprises various activities (e.g., cropping, breeding, nutrient leaching) and materials (e.g., fertilizer, feeds), which would provide a systematic analysis and comprehensive strategies [17]. Environmental LCA is a significant method for presenting environmental improvements, given that it quantifies sources of impacts throughout a product's life cycle for various environmental impacts, thereby allowing environmental improvements to be determined and ranked; this method has been confirmed to be useful [18][19][20][21].…”