Grasping opportunities for organic fertilizers to take the initiative in industrial transformation

June 20 22:00:06, 2018

Over the years, chemical fertilizers have played a major role in increasing food production and solving the problem of food and clothing for 1.3 billion people. However, excessive use of chemical fertilizers can also cause serious damage to the soil structure, degraded agricultural product quality, and cause serious agricultural non-point source pollution. With the increasing pursuit of 'green agriculture' and 'green agricultural products' in society, replacing some chemical fertilizers with organic fertilizers has become a trend in the development of modern agriculture. For fertilizer production companies, in the increasingly fierce competition in the fertilizer market, this trend is a huge business opportunity.
Organic fertilizers are generally divided into special fertilizers, bio-organic fertilizers, and bio-organic-inorganic compound fertilizers. They were first developed by Americans, and industrial production began in the mid-1970s. At present, nearly 2,000 companies in the world are engaged in large-scale organic fertilizer production, while in China, there are only more than 30.
At present, China has about 2.5 billion tons of livestock manure, more than 700 million tons of straw and 200 million tons of woodland waste, 35 million tons of rice husk, more than 4 million tons of sugar sludge, and 20 million tons of cake fertilizer each year. Other organic waste, such as bagasse, totaled 3.5 billion tons, providing a reliable raw material guarantee for the production of organic fertilizers. For a long time to come, the production of organic fertilizers will not encounter raw material 'bottleneck'.
Statistics show that the proportion of organic fertilizer used in China accounts for less than 30% of total agricultural fertilizer use. According to domestic and foreign experts on soil fertility tests, only when the ratio of organic fertilizer and chemical fertilizer is 2:1 can we maximize the efficiency of chemical fertilizers, improve the soil structure, maintain the organic matter content in soil, and enhance the ability of crops to resist pests and diseases. In 2004, China's agricultural chemical fertilizers amounted to 46.37 million tons (refined). If organic fertilizers/chemical fertilizers are calculated at 2:1, over 90 million tons of organic fertilizers (pure nutrients) are required. At present, China’s organic fertilizer production capacity is less than 1.5 million tons.
The gap between supply and demand is large, the development prospects are broad, and the market has unlimited business opportunities.
Of course, due to the incomplete development of the market, there are still some problems in the development of organic fertilizers. First, the characteristics of chemical fertilizers are fast, efficient, time-saving and labor-saving, and they are still deeply loved by farmers. Therefore, organic fertilizer production enterprises do not increase production and income in the short term more than chemical fertilizers. Second, at present, there are about 30 organic fertilizer manufacturers in China, and most of them have a production scale of 50,000 tons/year or less. They have small scale, high prices, and few famous products, making the price advantage of organic fertilizer difficult to show. Thirdly, more than 70% of the raw materials used to produce organic fertilizer are livestock manure. At present, China's poultry farming enterprises are small and scattered, which increases the difficulty of raw material collection and transportation costs for producing organic fertilizer. Fourth, the relevant quality standards for organic fertilizers are missing or imperfect, and market supervision is weak. This makes counterfeit organic fertilizers flood the market and reduces the credibility of organic fertilizers.
Experts pointed out that although the development of organic fertilizers in China is facing many problems and difficulties, in the long run, the production of organic fertilizers will inevitably be valued by the country and favored by the market. Prospective fertilizer producers should focus on the development of this potential market from now on, in order to take the initiative in the future of industrial transformation.