Sow seeds for farming change

Rijk Zwaan, a Dutch vegetable seed company, introduces new varieties and transfers knowledge about cultivation and marketing to help growers create extra value. Provided to China Daily

At a recent news briefing, Zeng Yande, an official from the Ministry of Agriculture, said that fruits, vegetables and tea grown in China now taste worse than before and also have a much lower economic return because of the overuse of chemical fertilizers.

The excessive use of chemical fertilizers has not only increased planting costs but also resulted in concerns about the quality and safety of vegetables, fruits and other crops grown in China.

Statistics show that the country is now the world's largest user of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, with their use over the last three decades increasing more than six times the world's average.

The overuse of chemical fertilizers means that vegetables and fruits grown in China lack flavor, and this weakened their competitiveness even in the domestic market.

At a time when other agricultural countries are going all out to promote their agricultural products in the international market, the declining quality of Chinese agricultural products resulting from the excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides will inevitably create a stumbling block for the development of China's agriculture.

There is also evidence that the overuse of chemical fertilizers has caused a continuous decline in marginal returns for China's agricultural output, which means that the more such fertilizers are used, the slower agricultural output grows. Worse, unchecked use of chemical fertilizers has seriously harmed the health of the country's soil.

The use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has become normal practice for farmers in China. To change this unhealthy state of affairs, the government should try to wean farmers from their dependency on chemical fertilizers by means of policy guidance and encouragement.

The production and use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides have to be controlled, and farmers, through fiscal and taxation means, should be encouraged to use cleaner and more environmentally friendly organic fertilizers.