Interview with Mohammad Zaman, Section head at Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Section, Joint FAO/IAEA center

"Global climate change is having a significant impact on agricultural cultivation. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that the total number of people currently suffering from food shortages worldwide is between 720 million and 810 million, and global food security remains a serious challenge. Climate change has led to an increasing frequency of extreme weather such as floods, droughts and heat waves, posing a threat to agricultural production." Mohammad Zaman, a soil scientist and plant nutrition expert from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said in a recent interview with a local Chinese newspaper.
As an expert, what is his understanding of the current climate change and the future development of agricultural products and even agriculture?

You can't treat agribusiness as an ordinary business

Zaman said that fertilizers play an important role in guaranteeing global food security as the current global consumption of agricultural fertilizers is about 200 million tons per year, contributing to more than 40 percent of the increase in food production.

He said that global climate change had been evident in recent years. As greenhouse gas emissions increased, the climate was becoming drier, soils were becoming more acidic and there was an increase in extreme weather, all of which created uncertainty for agricultural production. At the same time, the global population is still growing and the human diet is becoming richer. In addition, with industrialization, less land area is left for agriculture and soil quality is declining. At the current rate of population growth, how can we feed so many people? One can only find ways to increase crop yields.

"There are many people who consider applying organic fertilizers, but chemical fertilizers are indispensable and their contribution to increased food production is indispensable." Zaman said, "We know that the world is currently facing a major problem in that fertilizers are not efficiently utilized, especially phosphorus, which is poorly utilized in fertilizers, and large amounts of it are deposited in the soil, which not only wastes resources, but also pollutes the soil and water bodies, which in turn negatively impacts the human ecosystem."

What to do? This requires agro inputs industry players to not simply treat agriculture as an ordinary business, sell fertilizers to farmers, make profits and "all is well" as long there are profits. We should think of agriculture as a system, the fertilizer is applied to make the soil more fertile, to produce more and better crops, ensuring the ecological environment becomes better, people’s health thus improves,  and a virtuous cycle is established.

Globally, fertilizer use is uneven, with some countries using way too much and others using way too less. In Africa, for example, fertilizer use is particularly low, and local fertilizer production capacity is particularly limited.

Therefore, from the perspective of the future development of global agriculture, whether it is production or trade, Africa deserves more attention.

We need to think of the soil as a bank account

"We need to develop environmentally friendly and cost-effective additives that contain plant growth stimulants and soil remediation materials, among others, to improve fertilizer utilization. At the same time, there is a need to maximize resource use and reduce energy consumption to prevent secondary pollution during the production of new fertilizers." Zaman said.

Zaman said that the current climate change has limited agricultural production, and at the same time, agricultural production also produces a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn exacerbates climate change. Thus, agricultural production is a key issue, and if dealt with properly, can become a solution too.
To ensure a sustainable future, manufacturers of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and pesticides, must prioritize environmental friendliness. Rather than resting on their laurels, they should strive for constant innovation to develop superior solutions.

And for growers, we need to think of the soil as a bank account, where we are making deposits by applying fertilizer and withdrawing money by harvesting the crop out. How much nutrition to put in and how much to spend has to be considered holistically and not used in overdraft.
For instance, New Zealand's planting is very scientific, farmers will decide how much fertilizer to apply according to what kind of yield and quality of the crop is going to be achieved. This is smart agriculture. The enterprises that will succeed in the future must know how to innovate, educate and share. In this system, manufacturers produce environmentally friendly and efficient products, and growers know how to use them correctly, so as to ensure that the soil is healthy, the crops grow well, and produce high-quality agricultural products, which in turn ensures human health, thus forming a virtuous circle.”

"We all know that in order to have a healthy baby, you have to have a healthy mom. The same goes for crops, only when the soil is fertile can we grow bountiful produce." Zaman puts it graphically.

Nitrogen inhibitor and Phosphor mobilizers additives: Crop Yield Increase Effectively

"I was introduced to the Nitrification Inhibitor Fertilizer product from Shanghai Bijing Fertilizer Co., Ltd (hereinafter referred to as Shanghai Bijing) when I was working in New Zealand, and have conducted numerous trials in over 30 countries around the world." Zaman said, "The conclusions of the trials showed that additives as NMAX are very effective. First of all, the effect of crop yield increase is obvious. Experiments in many countries around the world found that fertilizers with additives as NMAX brought obvious crops yield increase on corn, soybeans and on.

Secondly, compared to other common nitrification inhibiting products, such as DCD and DMPP, NMAX  is more economical , works with lower dosage, has better effect and creates less greenhouse gas release.

According to Zaman, among the greenhouse gases, there is a substance called nitrous oxide, which can cause great harm to human health. The FAO study showed that by using nitrification inhibitor fertilizer products, annual emissions of nitrous oxide were reduced by 28.4% and nitrogen oxide emissions were reduced by 76.5% compared with conventional fertilizer application. These results show that nitrification inhibitor fertilizer products have the potential to be promoted globally, helping to reduce agricultural pollution and promote green and high-quality agricultural development.

Zaman emphasized that nitrification inhibitors can improve crop nitrogen nutrition and nitrogen fertilizer utilization by slowing down the conversion of ammonium nitrogen to nitrate nitrogen in the soil, increasing the fixation of nitrogen in the soil, and realizing the simultaneous supply of ammonium and nitrogen to the crop.

Zaman also mentioned that climate-smart agricultural practices involve the use of isotope /nuclear techniques to obtain essential information on how to optimize fertilizer use and improve agricultural productivity while maintaining soil health. Such techniques have a wide range application, as they’re even able to exponentially increase crops shelf life, for example . This suggests that their research is not only focused on nitrification inhibitors per se, but also on how these technologies can be applied in practical agricultural production to improve crop productivity and quality while reducing environmental impacts.

Zaman suggests that agricultural development in China should focus on optimizing soil, nutrient and water management, as well as selecting high-quality varieties to improve crop yield, quality and profitability. "China is a vast country with different ecosystems in the east, west, south and north, and a rich soil structure, so Chinese agriculture shows diversity." Zaman said, "Smart agriculture is about looking at agriculture as a system and involving every part of it, especially the growers, making sure they are involved, giving them more tools and knowledge, and making them realize that only with good growing solutions can they increase production and income and achieve sustainable agriculture."

He said fertilizer inputs are related to food security, and if they are not handled well, they will not solve the problem of global hunger, which in turn will lead to unrest, crime, etc. "So we need more efficient and environmentally friendly agricultural inputs, like nitrification inhibitor fertilizers that are worth promoting. Our collaborative trials with the State Key Laboratory of Soil and Agricultural Sustainable Development at the Nanjing Soil Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that an average of 7% yield increase was achieved with NMAX fertilizer. As the global population increases, we need more good agricultural inputs to feed everyone, which is vital for world peace!" Zaman said.