WORLD TRENDS IN FERTILIZER USE AND PROJECTIONS TO 2020

Abstract

Fertilizers have played an important role in increased crop production, especially in cereal yields, and will continue to be a cornerstone of the science-based agriculture required to feed the expanding world population.Fertilizers replenish the nutrients removed from soils by harvested crops, encourage adoption of high-yielding varieties, and increase biomass in the nutrient-poor soils of the tropics. Fertilizer Use Until the 1990sGlobal fertilizer use increased at an annual rate of 5.5percent from 27.4 million nutrient tons in 1959/60 to 143.6million tons (in this paper, all tons are nutrient tons) in 1989/90.Over the next five years, it decreased by 20 million tons.In all developing regions, fertilizer use increased significantly, during 1960-90, at annual rates ranging from 8 percent in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa to 12 percent in South Asia (Table 1).