UNECE questionnaire fertilizers EN

Fertilizers statistics in Eastern
Europe, Caucasus and Central
Asia

Guna Karlsone, CSB of Latvia


Necessity of the information
 Consumption of mineral fertilizers, like all agri-environmental indicators,
are important in the assessment of over-time trends of the agricultural
effects on environment;
 Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) are «primary» nutrients
and they are the main nutrients limiting crop growth in agriculture;
 Losses of N and P into the wider environment have major ecological
impact;
 Indicator ‘consumption of mineral fertilizers’ is very important for the
calculation of:
 N and P balances;
 Ammonia emissions;
 Greenhouse gas emissions.

 Indicator can be calculated in a uniform way, which facilitates comparison
between regions and over time.
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Summary of national replies to the
questions

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Conclusions
 11 countries filled in the questionnaire;
 63% of the countries indicated that the body responsible for the data
compilation on fertilizers is national statistical institution;
 Only Ukraine mentioned an issue related to interagency cooperation –
there is a problem of the coordination between institutions involved in data
compilation from one side and national statistical institution being
responsible for the compilation of country totals from other side.
HOW THE CURRENT SITUATION MAY BE IMPROVED
 As proposal for EU Member States suggests to set up national
workgroups, also EECCA countries could organize national workgroup to
discuss problems on fertilizer statistics;
 Free to choose members, they could be: national statistical office, relevant
ministries, agricultural institutes, fertilizer industry etc.
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B. Description of data quality assurance and control
procedures for the production of indicator

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Quality assurance - conclusions
 4 countries (Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russian Federation, Ukraine) set up
arithmetical and logical control procedures, and in case of mistakes,
corrections are made;
 Georgia described the problems;
 Uzbekistan did not leave answer to the question;

 In case of Tajikistan reply is too general and it is not possible to make
some conclusions.
HOW CURRENT SITUATION CAN BE IMPROVED

 Accuracy and completeness are the key aspects of quality;
 Try to describe what quality control procedures have been applied by the
responsible institution (not only mentioned responsible institution);
 Additional methodological and explanatory information on the issue is
needed.
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Indicator publication

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Conclusions

 In general, the countries, which published data in paper form,
have data available also on the Internet.

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Main information holders and use of the
indicators at national level
 The main information holders are:
 Ministry of Agriculture (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan);
 National statistical institutions (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Russian

Federation, Tajikistan, Ukraine);
 Uzbekistan did no respond.

 The main information users mentioned are following:
 Ministry of Environment (Georgia, Tajikistan);
 Government, state departments, universities, scientists, media etc. (Russian
Federation, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan);
 For GHG Emissions (Ukraine).

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Time series of the data
1

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Time series of the data (continued)
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Total consumption of fertilizers, % over previous year
(% change)

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Consumption of mineral fertilizers per unit of land,
kg/ha

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Fertilizer consumption among countries, 2011

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Fertilizer consumption by type in 2011, %

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Share of area treated, %

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Comparison between use of mineral and organic
fertilizers in 2011, kg/ha

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Conclusions
 11 countries replied to the questionnaire and indicated that they have
statistics on consumption of mineral and organic fertilizers;

 6 countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russian
Federation, Ukraine) have been admitted to gather data on use of
fertilizers;
 Ukraine indicated the problem with complex mineral fertilizers
recalculation in 100% of nutrient, thus total for the country have not been
indicated;
 Ukraine indicated also problems with coordination between the institutions
involved in data compilation.
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(continued)
 Russian Federation calculated data on use of fertilizers on sown areas;
 Additional problems have been indicated:
 Survey on the use of fertilizers includes only agricultural organizations
(without microenterprises).

 Data on complex mineral fertilizers are included in respective type of
fertilizers;
 Georgia: national statistics office indicated that data of the survey on
fertilizer use are not reliable, thus there are no data for fertilizers phosphate
and potash, however table indicates the data on total consumption and
nitrogen fertilizers consumption what are not similar figures;
 There is no data on production, that is the reason why it is not possible to
use formula.

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(continued)

 Tajikistan indicated that statistics on fertilizer consumption is not
available per fertilizer type;
 Several countries are using some data quality checks, but there is no easy
accessible information about the quality of the data;
 The most urgent needs for data are:
 Annual N and P mineral fertilizer use in tons of nutrients;
 N fertilizers in tons broken down by grassland and arable/permanent crops;
 This official statistics should be also the basis for the reporting to UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Convention on
Long Range- Transboundary Air Pollution (CLTRP), FAO, OESD etc.

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Fertilizer application on fodder grasses

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Thank you for your attention!

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