Scientific Information for Sound Agricultural Decision Making

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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Best Available Technique (BAT) Assessment, Cost
vs. Benefit Considerations
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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
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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

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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)

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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.

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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

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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

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Nutrient Component

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

Graphical User Interface (ArcView)
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P Dilemma in Sub-Saharan Africa

• P deficiency widespread
• P fertilizer use 2.5 kg P2O5/ha.

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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

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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
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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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