A Brief History of Microbial Fertilizer Development in China

Agriculture is the most important economic sector of China, employing over 300 million farmers. Despite having just 8% of the world’s farmland and 23% of the world’s population, China ranks first in worldwide farm output - primarily producing rice, wheat, potatoes, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, cotton, oilseed, pork, and fish. This achievement was reached with great assistance of concentrated government policies towards the active use of microbial fertilizers and the Green Food movement.

Ever since the late 1990s, China was at the onset of an organic agriculture revolution.

From 2000 to 2006, China moved from 45th to 2nd position in the world in number of hectares under organic management. China in 2007 had more land under organic horticulture than any other country. China’s current organic area is four times USA’s organic hectares, and four and a half times that of Germany.

such leadership and conducted numerous research projects with the ministry’s blessings.

At about the same period of time, the Japanese Diet was also thinking along the same lines. The aims of both governments coincidentally were to raise production and become self-sufficient. In 1961, Japan enacted the "Fundamental Law of Agriculture". Its objective was to raise farmers' incomes in response to the rapid growth of the Japanese economy. China was already embarking on the same track.

Farmers were encouraged to selectively produce rice, vegetables, fruits, and forage crops. In fact, in Japan the government even discouraged emphasis on the planting of staple foods such as wheat, barley and corn, relying on their then-prevailing wealth to purchase such produce from Canada and the USA. Indeed it is during these times that large amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides were used. As a result, during the 1960s and 1970s, the yield of many crops per unit area increased dramatically.

China’s first eco-village was launched in the late 70s. The Liu Min Ying in the Da-xing County, used solar energy, water recycling, and many green technologies that produced extraordinary outputs so much so the village won a UN environmental protection (UNEP) award in 1987. This organic village has since prospered, and has branched out into eco-tourism and eco-training, and is now one of the richest villages, Beijing Municipality.

preferring instead to test the products themselves for chemical residues.

yield. Vegetable-producing soils are constantly being mined of nutrients with every harvest. This massive removal must be compensated by a large volume of inputs, either of chemical fertilizer, organic materials, or a mixture of both. While farmers attempt to compensate for nutrients removed by applying the same level of nutrients in fertilizer, it is difficult for them to achieve a proper nutrient balance, especially if they use only chemical fertilizers.

Hence, the negative effects of heavy applications of chemical inputs have become apparent, in terms of both production and the environment, especially in the case of vegetable and fruit production. Physiological disturbance of plant metabolism is common, due to the accumulation of excess plant nutrients in the soil. The spread of soil-borne diseases is a threat to vegetable and fruit production, especially where monoculture is prevailing. Pollution of underground and surface water by nitrates is already evident. Quality deterioration, in terms of a decrease in the content of vitamins and sugars happen. Therefore, a way of repairing the damage from the overuse of chemical inputs is being sought. The solution - a new but organic fertilization method may be the answer!

In December 1998, Premier Wen Jiabao reiterated that bioengineering is the future of China’s agriculture. As a result, a few months later, in April 1999, Microbial fertilizer was listed as one of the top priority agricultural projects. It was classified as a high-tech industrialization project because it addressed important and pressing problems in the country’s arable lands. China saw chemical fertilizer and bio-fertilizers as irreplaceable means of agriculture production.

A milestone for organic agriculture in China was the March 2001 speech by Communist Party General Secretary, Jiang Zemin, to China’s top leaders urging a “vigorous adjustment of agricultural structure”, and urging that “top priority” be given to “establish quality standards for farm produce, a move to a system for examining and testing farm produce and to develop organic and pollution-free food”; this may be regarded as a Chinese epiphany of the statement: “there is not much of a long term future in industrial agriculture”.

By June, 2002, microbial fertilizer was redefined by an Order of the Ministry of Agriculture. New rules and guidelines for microbial fertilizer development were in place.

Bio-fertilizers were the new thing to do in China then. In the 11th Five-year Plan for Bio-industry Development (April 2007) by the National Development and Reform Commission, microbial fertilizer development was on the upswing. Government-backed projects gave producers orders in support of their enthusiasm to change farming methodologies.

This Plan aimed at speeding up the development of bio-industry. Soil replenishment was now a must for improving the comprehensive productivity of agriculture. The country wanted to develop a batch of high-quality, high-output, and high-efficiency new seeds, and to further the application of bio-pesticides, bio-fertilizers, and other green bio-products are important means to push forward the development of farm production and aquaculture, to increase farmers’ income and to realize agricultural reconstruction.

As a result, numerous green bio-products emerged. And pesticide use in China which peaked in 1982 at 1.6 million tons, dropped to 1.3 million tons in 2003. From this period on, environmentally-friendly fertilizers were listed as a priority. Ecological technologies were developed. New fertilizer-production technologies were listed in “Guide to the Latest Key Priority Developmental Areas in the High Technology Industry (2007)”. This was a joint order, revised by the National Development and Reform Commission of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, and the State Intellectual Property Office.

one-third of the world’s average level” and water resources are only a quarter of the world average level.

In 2005, China produced 49% of the world’s vegetables, up from 36% in 1995 and 50% of the world’s apples. China is also the world’s largest producer of pears, accounting for 60%, soon to be 70%, of world production. Not strange therefore that China produces 49% of the world’s apple juice exports, with other countries’ production levels shrinking.

But there has always been a fear, by farmers and government, that although many microbial materials are widely and commercially sold, most of the products are not microbiologically defined, i.e. the microorganisms contained in the products are not identified, and the microbial composition is not fixed. Many of these commercial products are advertised as if they could solve any problem a farmer is likely to encounter. Dr. Ma Lintao was one of the few in China that alerted the Chinese government of this fact. His Green Sunshine fertilizer is produced under strict “formulas and recipes” so that this does not happen.