Developing Trends And Features Of Global Nitrogen Flow

In the context of globalization, this dissertation studied the self-sufficiency ratio of nitrogen contained in agricultural products (include nitrogen in fertilizer) in countries all over the world, nitrogen flow between countries accompanying world trade of agricultural products and the environmental effects generated in the process of nitrogen input and output, and that of nitrogen flow. We tried to uncover laws of demand and supply of agricultural products under globalization, and possible trends in the future by analyzing food security strategies adopted by typical countries. It is meaningful for studying food security and nutrient management in macroscale-no matter in theory or in practice-by taking this article as reference. The main conclusions of this article are as follow:1) From1961to2009, the proportion of countries and population that couldn’t satisfy their demand for food was consistently increasing from the ratio of40%and20%to65%and50%respectively. At the same time, those were able to export hardly varied, they remained the ratio of around or below20%. The distribution of global N industry gradually changed. Developed countries like Europe and US either minimized its scale of N fertilizer industry, or moved fertilizer industry into developing countries. More and more developing countries undertook the role of fertilizer producer, which is high pollution and high energy-consuming activities. The global N supply of agricultural products relies on different N categories. Land, energy and water was strengthening their constraint over food security. From1961to2009, countries and population that couldn’t satisfy their demand for fertilizer, vegetal-origin food and feed was increasing; Animal-origin food that less restrained by resource could satisfy more countries and population. Globalization didn’t solve the problem of food security, but widening the difference between producer and consumer price instead, which rendered the two subjects facing the pressure of instability.2) The globalization of the trade of agricultural products gave rise to tremendous variation of the quantity and direction of nitrogen flow in global scale. When analyzing the import and export situation of mineral products, we could find that European countries were cutting down their capacity in exporting nitrogen fertilizer in2011, while countries in Asia and Africa were increasing this capacity. North and South America was net import areas for nitogen fertilizer, and their contribution to the increment of nitrogen fertilizer import was39.5%and28.5, respectively. In2011, Asia and Africa were the major areas importing nitrogen contained in all agricultural products; Europe and North America were major exporting areas of vegetal-N and animal-N, while South America was main exporting area of feed-N. Natural element, such as mineral products and land, was driver of the globalization of agriculture at present. Europe and America was contracting the scale of resource-consuming industry; while developing and underdeveloped countries in Asia and Africa was exchanging mineral products for food, and South America was exchanging land for mineral products and food. Asia, South America and Africa will take leading roles in the trade of nitrogen contained in agricultural products in the future.3) From the perspective of environment, Europe-birthplace of industrial revolution-characterized by inputing exogenous fertilizer and organic matters to develop its agricultural production. However, as time goes by, the overuse of the exogenous matters gradually exceeded the spectrum that the environment could bear, and the total nitrogen load per ha arable land was out of limits seriously. In the late20th century and early21st century, Europe and American transformed their developing strategy. They contracted the scale of resource-consuming industry, reduced the input of exogenous matter at the same time, and enhanced nitogen use efficiency and recycling within the agricultural system. All this resulted in the decrease of nitrogen load per ha arable land. However, the rest of the world, owing to the pressure of economic development and the constently increasing population for food, still took the way of high input and low efficiency, and the nitrogen load per ha arable land was constantly increasing, and Asia was the typical region of this pattern. In2009,12countries in the world fertilizer N load per ha arable land exceeded200kgN/ha,33countries exceeded the same value when evaluated by total N load. It was only part of countries in Europe and countries that improved their nitrogen input at present, countries including Japan and Republic of Korea still went worse rapidly.4) Under different N trade strategy, oil exporting countries like the Middle East, they totally depend on food import, and might face the most serious environmental problem in the future. Advanced economies in small islands like Japan and Republic of Korea, they might have great pressure in both agricultural production and environment. Emerging populous countries like China, India and Brazil, they highly pursuit self-sufficiency of agricultural products, and they were moving toward the crossroad of agricultural production and environmental pollution. Countries like Europe and America, satisfying the increasing demand for animal-origin food was the main reason of great environmental pressure. Fertilizer input in African countries was relatively low, exogenous nutrient input was key issue to keep the development of their food production. In the future agricultural globalization, only by including technology and environment into policy consideration for most of the countries-like Europe and America-could they realize justice and sustainable development.