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Scientific Information for Sound Agricultural Decision Making

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Title: Scientific Information for Sound Agricultural Decision Making


1
Scientific Information for Sound Agricultural
Decision Making Food and Fertilizer
  • Upendra Singh
  • Senior Scientist - Systems Modeler
  • Resource Development Division
  • and
  • Feisal Beig
  • Senior Specialist - Marketing
  • Market Development Division

2
Goals
  • Maintaining and improving soil fertility to meet
    food demands of growing population.
  • Increasing the productivity of the land currently
    under production to avoid encroaching on
    wilderness areas.
  • Mitigating climate change by improved use
    efficiencies/reduced environmental hazards.
  • Improving livelihoods of farmers.
  • Improving human nutrition.
  • Unbiased information systems.

3
Industry Response
  • Products
  • Vast majority of crop nutrition products exist in
    forms that have remained largely unchanged for a
    half-century
  • Unlike traditional commodity products, new
    knowledge base products incorporate extensive
    research and have characteristics that are
    protected by intellectual property rules. E.g.
    smart release, bio-fertilizers, enriched
    organic, anti-explosives, low Cd P fertilizers,
    biotechnology components

4
Industry Response
  • Production Technology
  • 1. Cost consideration
  • 2. Energy Use (in last 15 years from 10 to 8 MWh
    per ton ammonia produced)
  • 3. Greenhouse gas emission (N2O, CFC)
  • Signatory on UNEP International Declaration on
    Cleaner Production
  • 4. Clean air NH3, SO2, F2
  • 5. Environmental credits
  • 6. Designs, databases competitive, regulate

5
Best Available Technique (BAT) Assessment, Cost
vs. Benefit Considerations
6
Anthropogenic Sources for N2O Emission (Kroeze,
1999)
Source Millions t N2O/yr
Nitric Acid Manufacture 0.4
Adipic acid manufacture 0.2
Combustion of fossil fuels 1.4
Combustion of biomass 0.9
Manure and human waste 3.3
Agricultural soils 6.6
Total Anthropogenic Sources 12.8
7
Industry Response
  • Production Technology
  • 1. Cost consideration
  • 2. Energy Use (in last 15 years from 10 to 8 MWh
    per ton ammonia)
  • 3. Greenhouse gas emission (N2O, CFC)
  • Signatory on UNEP International Declaration on
    Cleaner Production
  • 4. Clean air NH3, SO2, F2
  • 5. Environmental credits
  • 6. Designs, databases competitive, regulate

8
Research Support
  • Nutrient Management
  • site specific recommendation, precision
    agriculture
  • deep-placement
  • control release fertilizers
  • inhibitors
  • ? Improve
  • - Productivity (Food, feed, fiber and bioenergy)
  • - NUE, WUE, C Sequestration
  • ? Reduce
  • - Nutrient Losses - erosion, leaching, N2O
    volatilization
  • - Methane (cultivars and feed additives)

9
Research Support
  • International Nitrogen Initiative
  • - A balanced approach increase fertilizer use
    efficiency while safeguarding the key role that
    nitrogen plays in meeting the world's growing
    food demand
  • Research and extension by independent research
    centers
  • - Developed countries knowledge base is well
    established
  • - Developing countries (major agricultural
    growth markets) less investment
  • - Industry investment in independent research
    centers.

10
Education and Policy
  • Government and FAO Advisory
  • - Early years expertise highly valued in
    decision-making, at both a policy level and
    field- level
  • - Information from industry sources has been
    viewed with increasing cynicism by other
    stakeholders, and governments have been forced
    to maintain their distance from potentially
    valuable sources of expertise

11
Education and Policy
  • Outsourcing of agronomic research to independent
    institutes
  • - Increase the credibility of the results.
  • - However, this has reduced the interaction
    between industry decision-makers, policymakers
    and researchers.
  • - This disconnect has probably adversely
    affected decision-making across the board to
    varying degrees in different agribusiness
    sectors
  • (Regional Conference for Africa)

12
Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD), Agri-Environmental Indicators
and Economic Instruments
  • OECD indicators focus on simple measures such as
    kg ha-1 product applied with no consideration of
    initial soil conditions, climate, crop, etc.
  • OECD economists often suggest taxes on these
    indicators as a way to deal with excessive
    nutrients in the environment.

13
OECD Agri-Environmental Indicators and Economic
Instruments
  • ? Ignores good science in a number of ways
  • - Fails to address the management of nutrients
    from manures and other sources
  • - having no effect on the quality of management
    of the fertilizer that is applied and
    potentially diminishing crop quality and soil
    fertility
  • - Dynamic nutrient balance.
  • Proposed indicators are too difficult to
    implement in a policy framework.

14
Meeting Market Demands
  • Competitive producers deliver commodities that
    are in demand
  • What crops can be cultivated profitably at any
    specified location and season at prescribed
    commodity prices
  • Constraints
  • - 12 mil ha forest cut annually
  • - 40 more rice, wheat, etc without recourse to
    additional land and water resources
  • ? DSS tools, input data

15
Nutrient Component
  • Nutrient DSS
  • select target area
  • display base map
  • query nutrient
  • information
  • productivity analysis
  • print out

Graphical User Interface (ArcView)
16
(No Transcript)
17
P Dilemma in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • P deficiency widespread
  • P fertilizer use 2.5 kg P2O5/ha.

18
Phosphate Rock Decision Support System (PRDSS)
  • IFDC/IAEA-FAO developed PRDSS
  • Database PR characteristics, deposit,
    geological, climatic, soils, crops and economics
  • Identify agronomic and economic feasibility of
    direct PR application
  • Link with GIS Feasibility of mining and
    transportation
  • ?Decision use local PR vs. imported P
    fertilizer

19
Customer
Recommendations
Prediction/Diagnosis
Decision Aids
Existing Knowledge Base
Prices, Market Trends Distribution,
Consumption Production, Import, Export
Natural Resource Inventory
  • Databases
  • Soil
  • Climate
  • Crop
  • Inputs
  • Output

Outputs
Inputs
Food crop Cash Crop
Fertilizers Pesticides Seeds
20
Components of Integrated Decision Support Toolbox
  • Soil profile data bases (national, FAO)
  • Climate data (global climate change models,
    climate forecast)
  • Remote sensing data
  • Crop simulation models, expert knowledge
    (post-harvest handling, processing) and GIS
  • Market information system (inputs, outputs
    (crops), cash and futures market data, credits,
    loans)
  • Decision aids for economic and impact assessment

21
DSS Response
  • Food habits changing faster than farming can
    change
  • Corporate participation better alignment of
    farming and consumption pattern
  • Opportunities for improvement in developing
    countries
  • - currently low productivity but low labor
    globally competitive

22
Selected DSS Users
  • Crop Insurance
  • Data mining
  • - Discovery (conditional logic, affinities and
    associations, etc)
  • - Predictive Modeling (probabilities and
    forecasts)
  • - Forensic Analysis (deviation detection)
  • Scenarios for spot check

23
Fertilizer Industry DSS Use
  • Demand Forecasting (existing and future)
    Consider changes in
  • - demographics,
  • - incomes,
  • - purchasing power,
  • - food habits
  • - cropping patterns
  • - agricultural technology including
    bio-technology and precision agriculture, seeds,
    CPP technology
  • - information technology,
  • - educational levels,
  • - infrastructure,
  • - prices of inputs and outputs,
  • - investments in agriculture, etc.

24
Fertilizer Industry DSS Use
  • Demand Forecast (continued)
  • - Changes in markets due to a universal trend
    of decontrol, deregulation, privatization,
    introduction of open and competitive markets
    dominated by the private sector.
  • - Changes in business brought about by the
    ease in communication, dissemination of
    information, etc.

25
Fertilizer Industry DSS Use
  • Supply Forecast Consider
  • - Changes in fertilizer technology (products
    but more so production efficiencies and
    economies of scale have changed),
  • - Agroindustrial profile
  • - materials sources,
  • - prices,
  • - substitutes,
  • - increase in competition, etc
  • ? Improving the decision making process.

26
Market Society to Network Society
  • Easy access to information
  • Knowledge universities, research and
    extension
  • Purchasing power competition
  • Sales local, export, processing
  • Development work technology,
    health, legal
  • Feedback and power of scale

27
Acknowledgement
  • Thankful for contribution from IFA on how
    policymakers in the food value chain use science
    originating from industry and its related
    research base
  • Dr Arvin Mosier information on GECAFS-DSS
  • GECAFS/USDA-ARS/UF for the invitation and
    financial support
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