Stories of High-Quality Development | New fertilizers: From pursuing volume to boosting effectiveness

Narrator：Zhang Min, Deputy Director, National Engineering and Technology Research Center for Slow and Controlled Release Fertilizers

During this year's summer harvest, Li Shengyun, a new farmer in Linshu county, east China's Shandong Province, said excitedly, "Professor Zhang, my wheat yielded more this year, I used less fertilizer, and the income is pretty good."

Fertilizer is the "food" of grain. In earlier years, the more fertilizer farmers spread, the "hungrier" the land became. With the fertilizer utilization rate below 30 percent, farming costs kept rising every year, while incomes did not.

The people are the same, and so is the land. So what has changed?

In 2009, the Ministry of Science and Technology approved the establishment of a national engineering and technology research center for slow- and controlled-release fertilizers, with Kingenta as the host institution, in collaboration with Shandong Agricultural University. It helped bridge the gap between scientific research and industrial application.

The formulation of the core film material for coated controlled-release fertilizers had long been held by foreign companies, making it unaffordable for large-scale field use in China. Through more than a decade of research, we tackled two tough challenges: the difficulty of forming a film from bio-based materials, and matching nutrient release to crop uptake. By replacing petrochemical film coatings with natural materials such as crop straw, we developed green bio-based coated controlled-release fertilizers.

The results were immediate. The fertilizer utilization rate rose to 50 percent, and each mu of land needed 30 percent less fertilizer while producing 10 percent more grain.

Enterprises are the main players in technological innovation. Wan Peng, president of Kingenta Group, said, "In the past, we bought foreign technology and followed others' standards. Now, private enterprises participate in the work of national key laboratories and the national engineering and technology research center for slow- and controlled-release fertilizers, promoting the coordinated advancement of technological and industrial innovation. They have formulated national and industry standards. From delivering products to farmers' hands, to delivering technology and services to the fields, we are breaking through industrial bottlenecks with technology, leading industrial division of labor with standards, and creating new value through service extension."

"To develop new quality productive forces according to local conditions, you have to bend down and look at the land beneath your feet. We have the foundation for the fertilizer industry, the technological expertise of enterprises, and supporting policies for attracting and retaining talent. We want to plant 'new seedlings' in this soil. Building a modern industrial system is not about starting from scratch, but about enabling traditional industries to foster new technologies, new models and new tracks," said Sun Baiguang, deputy head of Linshu county.

Modernization of agriculture and rural areas bears on the overall situation and quality of Chinese modernization. According to the 15th Five-Year Plan for Accelerating Agricultural and Rural Modernization recently issued by the State Council, by 2030, the level of self-reliance and self-strengthening in agricultural science and technology will be significantly improved, and major breakthroughs will be made in developing new quality productive forces in agriculture. The path is clear: we must rely on ourselves to master core technologies and gain a bigger say in the global industry.

A transformation of traditional industries that aims at stabilizing output while improving quality is quietly taking place. Asked what it means for new quality productive forces to take root, Li said, "For me, that means: right here beneath my feet, this land has spurred a fertilizer plant to forge new technology and given traditional industries a new look. And the wheat, sweet potatoes, and corn we grow are yielding more and more, and our incomes keep rising."