How serious is potassium deficiency in China? The truth is heartbreaking!

【ITBEAR】According to news on August 11, in recent years, the use of chemical fertilizers in China has been a focus of attention in the agricultural field. What is particularly concerning is that although China occupies an important position in global fertilizer consumption, it faces a serious shortage of key potassium fertilizer resources. The issue highlights China's agriculture's high dependence on global resources and the challenges it faces in ensuring food self-sufficiency. As the cornerstone of modern agriculture, the importance of chemical fertilizers is self-evident. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are the three main components of chemical fertilizers. China is basically self-sufficient in the first two, but it has a huge gap in potassium fertilizer. Potassium salt is the main raw material for the production of potash fertilizer. However, China's potassium salt reserves only account for 5% of the world's, but it has to achieve 15% of its production capacity. The contradiction between supply and demand is very prominent. According to ITBEAR, more than half of China's cultivated land requires potassium fertilizer supplementation, especially in some major agricultural areas, such as Fujian, Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Hainan, etc., where soil potassium content is generally low. The shortage of potassium fertilizer not only affects plant metabolism, but also increases the risk of pests, diseases and lodging, posing a serious threat to crop yields. In 2017, the use of counterfeit and inferior chemical fertilizers in Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia, resulted in a significant reduction in potato production on 20,000 acres. This incident once again highlighted the importance of potash fertilizers to agricultural production. In 2023, China's potassium salt import volume will reach 11.57 million tons, and the import value will reach 463.61 billion US dollars, showing China's huge demand in the global potash salt market. However, global potash resources are highly monopolized, mainly concentrated in countries such as Canada, Belarus, Russia and the United States, which makes China lack bargaining power on potash fertilizer imports.

China’s potash resources

1. are mainly concentrated in the Qaidam Basin in Qinghai, Lop Nur Salt Lake in Xinjiang, and Northern Tibet Salt Lake Area in Tibet.
2. It is difficult to develop, the grade is low, and the output cannot meet the demand.

Global potassium salt resources

1. solid potash salt resourceshigh grade, low development cost.
2. China mainly uses Brine potassium salt, which is difficult and costly to develop.

   

   Despite facing many challenges, China is still working hard to increase domestic potash production. Through technological innovation and expansion of production scale, China has occupied a certain position in global potash production. However, long-term dependence on imports is still an unavoidable reality. In order to ensure food security, China is actively expanding overseas potash resources and striving to build diversified potash fertilizer import channels by investing in overseas potash projects and strengthening international cooperation.

As an important partner of China, Laos has played an active role in the supply of potassium salt. Chinese companies have made significant progress in potash investment projects in Laos and are expected to become one of the important sources of potash fertilizer imports in China in the future. In addition, China is also actively seeking cooperation with other countries to further enrich potash fertilizer import channels.

1. As the world’s largest potash consumer, China is facing huge resource pressure. In order to ensure food security and sustainable agricultural development, China needs to improve its capabilities in overseas expansion, internationalization, competition for pricing power, and global governance. At the same time, China also needs to actively explore new potash resources and technological innovation to reduce its dependence on imported potash fertilizer.

2. Modern China cannot do without the support of global resources. As one of the key resources for agricultural production, potassium salt supply security is of great significance to national food security. Faced with the monopoly pattern of the global potash market and the limitations of its own resources, China needs to adopt a more active and diversified strategy to ensure a stable supply of potash fertilizer.
   -->

The above is the detailed content of How serious is potassium deficiency in China? The truth is heartbreaking!. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!