Fertilizer Overuse Damages Agriculture and Environment in
China
October 12, 2011
Summary: Farmers in China keep increasing the use of
chemical fertilizer in an effort to improve yield, while experts warn their
overuse is making farmland unusable, degrading the quality of China’s fruit and
vegetables, killing lakes and streams, and introducing pollutants into the air.
“If farmers overuse chemical
fertilizers for a long period, the fertilizer residues will affect water
quality. When the nitrogenous fertilizer is washed away or carried into the
air, it will decrease air quality,” Xu Mingang, vice director of Institute of
Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural
Sciences, pointed out in an interview with the NTD TV. Chemical fertilizer use
in China has increased by 225% since 1980, according to a survey by the Soil
and Fertilizer Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The
yield increased 40 percent during this period. “The production and consumption
of the fertilizer in China are both more than one third of the world. In recent
years, in order to increase the grain yield, the use of fertilizer and
pesticides has increased, resulting in problems like land desertification,
declination of organic matter in lands, and so on,” the general secretary of
the Jilin Grain Economic Association, Liu Xiaoran, said, as reported by the
Economic Information Daily. Economic Information Daily reported on Aug. 15 that
in Jilin Province, which is China’s largest grain production province, said
some farmers use the fertilizer for the entire season, in the planting season
itself.
Opinion:
I think it is amazing how the fertilizer
use is getting so overused that is decreasing not only the water quality but
the quality of the air we breathe in. Hopefully they are making changes because
as you can see in the picture above their water is dark green when the turbidity
is supposed to be clear. As we learned in class the reason the water is green
is because of the algal blooms. When too much fertilizer enters the body of
water, the water begins to have too much nutrients in it. What has shocked me
the most is that China uses about one third of fertilizer in the world. China’s
government needs to put a stop to the increase in the use of fertilizer even if
the yield is going better.
Questions:
1) Do
you think that fertilizer is the only reason for the poor water and air quality
in China?
2) Why
do you think China had such an increase of the use of fertilizer?
3) If
China does not stop over using fertilizer what are some ways to prevent the
fertilizer from entering into the bodies of water?
Opinion:
ReplyDeleteI think that the Chinese government should make some laws that limit the amount of fertilizers that farmers can use. All the excess fertilizer either gets washed into the water or is released into the air.I can remember in class when we did the enviroscape activity, we saw how polluted the water can get from the fertilizers. I remember how disgusted I was at the fact that this was happening all over the world, and even more so in china. Also, they use so much fertilizer that it turns out to make China's fruits and vegetables lower quality, so its kind of counterintuitive.
Question #1:
Of course not, theyre are many other factors, but some of these statistics are quite staggering. The 225% increase in usage in fertilizer since 1980 is astonishing. But, any place where your population is high, there will inevitabley be more pollution. The algae however, is caused by the fertilizer, and is killing wildlife and is not suitable for drinking at all.
Opinion:
ReplyDeleteI think they should also limit the fertilizer. But their can be many other factors that come into play and it's not just fertilizer. Pollution from humans like Chinese people that litter in their local watersheds can also lead to this bad water quality. The government should definitely limit fertilizer use but also make laws and fine litterers.
Question 2:
Their was such an increase in fertilizer use because of the food they produce. China is a large manufacturer of many things. They also have many farms which will use a lot of fertilizer to ensure their food grows fast and healthy. They then ship it to all different countries that trade with them.
Opinion:
ReplyDeleteI think it is amazing how use of fertilizer can get this out of hand. Not only is the fertilizer effecting the water they drink, but also the air that hey breathe. I really hope that fertilizer never becomes as great of a problem here in the US. I believe that the government in China should have been helping that man clean up the lake instead of trying to stop him. My parents put fertilizer on our lawn, but hopefully it will never get this out of hand.
Question 2:
China probably has such an increase in the use of fertilizer because they have many farmers who are trying o protect their plants. Most likely each farmer isn't using too muc fertilizer, but when you put them all together, the amount of fertilizer is overwhelming.
just to add to my first post, in the question, i was referring to the fertilizer causing algae to grow in china's WATER SUPPLY.
ReplyDeleteOpinion:
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem like the farmers took into consideration the chain reactions of using so much fertilizer. If they though about the end result of using so much fertilizer, this wouldn't be a problem, and they might have even found or created a fertilizer that wouldn't require so much use and wouldn't harm the environment and the people around it so much.
Question #2
China is known for growing grains, rice, and things of that nature. There must have been a demand for these crops, and so the farmers had to produce more in able to fulfill the demand. And to produce more they used more fertilizer. I know that my dad refrains from using alot of fertilizer on our grass because it washes down the storm drains with all of my neighbors pool water that gets drained.