Phosphorus status, use and recycling in a Chinese peri-urban region with intensive animal husbandry and cropping systems Results from case study in a Sino-German applied research collaboration project

Abstract

The Sino-German research collaboration project, “Recycling of organic residues from agricultural and municipal origin in China” (2008–2012), comprising different interdisciplinary research groups, and also German small and medium-sized enterprises, aimed at developing integrated strategies and solutions for the recycling of organic residues in China. In an intensive crop-livestock agricultural region in the Shunyi District of Beijing, five typical cropping systems were investigated. The research was conducted in the form of analyses of phosphorus (P) in soil, plants, animal feed, animal products, manures, mineral and organic fertilizers and the derivation of the corresponding nutrient balances and P flows. The mean annual P balance surplus was 492 kg·ha⁻¹·yr⁻¹ P for the vegetable production system, significantly higher (P<0.05) than that for orchards (130 kg·ha⁻¹·yr⁻¹P) and cereal crops (83 kg·ha⁻¹·yr⁻¹ P). Plant-available P (Olsen-P) concentrations of topsoils (0–20 cm) had good correlations with the amounts of P applied (from mineral and organic sources). Compared to results from the Second Chinese National Soil Survey of 1981, mean concentrations of available P in soils of 19 plots investigated in Shunyi District increased 10-fold (from 7.3 to 60 mg·kg⁻¹) from 1981 to 2009. On average, the critical limit for Olsen-P concentrations (>30 mg·kg⁻¹) that can lead to increased risk of P loss was exceeded in all five cropping systems. With feed additives, the “natural background value” (Chinese Environmental Quality Standard for Soils) of copper and zinc in topsoils was exceeded at several sites. Screening for several substances in the veterinary antibiotic classes of sulfonamides, tetracyclines, and fluoroquinolones revealed widespread topsoil contamination. Calculated livestock densities were 10.6 livestock units per ha arable land in 2007. Animal husbandry is increasingly conducted in large operations, making traditional ways of reuse difficult to apply. Comparing three management systems for treatment of organic residues from a pig farm via aerobic (composting) or anaerobic (biogas) treatment in a life cycle assessment, the resulting cropland demand for a sustainable land application of biogas effluent varied between 139 and 288 ha·yr⁻¹, well above the cropland area owned by the farm (10 ha). The mismatch problems in the above context between business-as-usual and improving performance are framed and discussed as (1) the mismatch between centralized animal husbandry and smallholder farming, (2) the mismatch between livestock density and cropland, (3) nutrient (including P) recycling and increasing organic matter content versus energy production, (4) subsidies for compost production and biogas, as well as (5) advances in the regulatory framework in China.

Keywords

cropping systems / life cycle assessment / North China Plain / balances and nutrient flows / transdisciplinary approach

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Acknowledgements

Research was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) project “Recycling of organic residues from agricultural and municipal origin in China” (0330847A-H), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST) (2009DFA32710) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)–China Scholarship Council (CSC). A major part of the information was included in a handout for the “Mutual Learning Session” (MLS 1.1) held at the pilot pig farm in Shunyi District of Beijing in June 2013 preceding the 1st Global TraPs (Transdisciplinary Processes for Sustainable Phosphorus Management) World Conference, which was co-funded by the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Marco Roelcke, Lisa Heimann, Yong Hou, Jianbin Guo, Qiaoyun Xue, Wei Jia, Anne Ostermann, Roxana Mendoza Huaitalla, Moritz Engbers, Clemens Olbrich, Roland W. Scholz, Joachim Clemens, Frank Schuchardt, Rolf Nieder, Xuejun Liu, and Fusuo Zhang declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2019. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)