Nitrogen use (in)efficiency and cereal production in Brazil: current trends and forecasts

Marcel V. Pires, Denis A. Cunha, Raiza M. Faria and Douglas Lindemann

No 212709, 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: Here, we provide an analysis to understand the evolution of cereal production and consumption of nitrogen (N) fertilizers in Brazil and to correlate N use efficiency (NUE), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and economic and environmental losses. Our results showed that the increased consumption of N fertilizers is associated with a large decrease in NUE in recent years. CO2eq emissions from N fertilization for cereal production were approximately 12 times higher in 2011 compared to 1970. The projected N fertilizer forecasts are 2.09 and 2.37 million ton for 2015 and 2023, respectively. An increase of 0.02% per year in the projected NUE was predicted for the same time period. In a hypothetical scenario, a 2.39% increase in cereal NUE would lead to USD 21 million savings in N fertilizer costs. Thus, increases in NUE rates would lead not only to agronomic and environmental benefits but also to economic improvement.

Keywords: International Development; Production Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/212709/files/P ... 20production-232.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae15:212709

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.212709

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy from International Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().