Global consumption of fertilizer has doubled since 1980 but some regions that have historically overused fertilizer, including in China and parts of Europe, have taken steps to reduce use. Those are some of the findings of a new global dataset from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment.
Deepak Ray, a research professor at the Institute on the Environment, spent six years leading the development of a new global dataset of crop-specific fertilizer application rates. The team’s analysis of the data was recently published in Environmental Research Letters.
Optimizing fertilizer use — correcting underuse while reducing overuse — could produce enough crops to feed the world while limiting environmental harms. But to achieve this balance, we need to know the global rates of fertilizer application — information that has only ever existed as fragments or snapshots in time.
The new global dataset — created in collaboration with Tek Sapkota of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and Achim Dobermann of the International Fertilizer Association — provides crop-specific nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizer application rates for every country spanning 1980 to 2022. The team compiled 800,000 existing data points, building imputation software to complete the picture. The resulting dataset includes application rates for 156 crops plus pastures and forests, providing the first-ever picture of all three major nutrients, at the individual crop level, in a continuous global record.
Source : umn.edu