The role of technology transfer to improve fertiliser use efficiency

Abstract

Over the past 80 years, crop yields under developed agriculture have increased rapidly. However, in many countries the rate of increase has slowed significantly. In some areas of the world such as Europe, nutrient inputs have been significantly reduced and yields have stagnated, while in other parts of the world the amount of nutrients applied have been constant with moderate yield increases. In either case, farmers are seeking to improve nutrient use efficiency. The potential to increase yields is significant. The greatest potential exists in areas where yields are low and limited by a readily remedied limiting factor; a situation often encountered in developing nations where nutrient deficiencies persist. Yield response to nutrient application where no other limiting factor exists, is invariably a diminishing return curve, showing strong increases in yield with initial additions of nutrients then plateauing with increasing applications. Remote sensing by satellite and wireless communications offer an opportunity to identify limiting factors in crops globally and provide timely management information to farm managers to control inputs or adjust practices. In the developing world, the use of remote sensed data may be a required focus area, where services are provided and information dispersed, to assist farmers. For example climate and surface temperature monitoring could improve fertiliser efficacy by scheduling applications when soil moisture conditions allow uptake of nutrient, whilst also preventing applications prior to deluges, which would cause fertiliser run off to waterways. This paper explores the use of remote sensing technologies to improve efficiency of fertiliser use.

Food and water gaps to 2050: preliminary results from the global food and water system (GFWS) platform

“…While a zero rate of nitrogen fertilisation is an extreme assumption, it does show the importance of fertiliser application in terms of feeding the world. To the extent that fertiliser use can impose negative environmental costs on landscapes and planetary nitrogen and phosphorus cycles (Rockström et al 2009), reductions in its average use must be accompanied by methods of crop production that offset the expected decline in crop yields, such as through nitrogen use efficiency in plants, precision agriculture (Grafton and Yule 2015) and effective use of biological nitrogen fixation. Finding ways to deliver the nitrogen essential to food production, but in ways that do not have negative impacts on the ecological processes and GHG emissions is a significant challenge (Mueller et al 2014) Figure 6 shows the relationship between water deficits/ surpluses under three rates of irrigation for each of 19 countries where N fertiliser was held constant at 50 kg/ha and crop productivity improvement was set at about 0.4 %/year to 2050.…”