New AG International talks to a leading water-soluble fertilizer producer in China.
What is and what is not a water-soluble fertilizer (WSF) in your company's definition? Fondin’s definition of the WSF is consistent with China national standards of macronutrients WSF (NY 1107-2010), such as N+P2O5+K2O ≥50%, TE between 0.2 percent to three percent, etc. But we take stricter standard for the insoluble content rate – the national standard is ≤five percent, and our standard is ≤0.1 percent. We conduct the same standard for our products sold in China and other countries. We don’t take the raw material fertilizers for fertigation or foliar spray into account, like industrial grade MKP, MAP.
What do you estimate as the approximate size (by volume) of the water-soluble market in China? It is really hard to get the exact statistics about the WSF market in China, but we think that the product of WSF is estimated to be about two million tonnes in the China market, mainly the macronutrient WSF powder products, and WSF with amino acid, or seaweed extract or humic acid not included in this figure.
How does Fondin break down the market by consumption, i.e. what percentage is greenhouse, horticulture, orchard, fields? Out-of-season greenhouse vegetables, especially in Shangdong province, is the first and the most important market of Fondin WSF products. At one time, the greenhouse vegetable growers in Shangdong province usually used the conventional compound fertilizer; but after they tried our products, they found our WSF worked more effective, with more yield and better quality. After greenhouse vegetables, we entered the fruit tree and horticulture markets as well. In recent years, the row crop market is becoming another focus of ours. Nowadays, the greenhouse vegetable market makes up a relatively significant share of 55 percent, fruit tree about 30 percent, horticulture 10 percent and row crops five percent.
What provinces in China are the largest consumers of WSF? Shangdong province is the largest consumer of WSF in China, especially for out-of-season greenhouse vegetables, followed by Yunnan and Guangdong provinces. Years ago, numerous fruit trees in Guangdong province were felled because of diseases. Hainan province, as the main producer of tropical fruits, is also an important consumer of WSF.
Please tell us about Fondin – how many production factories do you have? what WSF products do you make at them? We have only one factory, located in Lin-gang Special Area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone of Shanghai city. The factory has two
workshops: one is for manufacturing the powder products with an annual production capacity of 100,000 tonnes; and the other is for liquid fertilizers with an annual production capacity of 50,000 tonnes. We just launched the new powder product manufacturing system – this system operates at about 40 percent of the full capacity for the production of powder WSF. Delivery of the raw materials into the preparation tank, automatic pre-processing, accurate formulating, intelligent mixing and packaging and stacking, anti-counterfeiting system, precise environmental control – all these production processes integrate perfectly in the new system. The liquid products workshop is for the production of liquid WSF, like the products of mineral nutrients, seaweed extracts, amino acid or humic acid.
What volume do you produce each year? Right now, the annual production reaches nearly 40,000 tonnes, among which 85 percent are powder products, including WSF of macronutrients + TE, WSF of secondary nutrients, organic and inorganic WSF, WSF of micronutrients. In the powder products, the NPK compound fertilizer of (2:1:3) account for about 50 percent, (2:1:2) and (1:1:1) about 35 percent, and (3:1:1) and (1:4:1) about 15 percent. The liquid products, mainly biostimulants including enzymatic hydrolyzed seaweed extracts and its derivation products, amino acid peptide and its derivation products, and humic acid and its derivation products, account for about 15 percent of the total production, and this proportion would continue increasing in the future. What is driving the increase in consumption of WSF in China? From the customers side, the demand for high-quality vegetables, fruits and other crops is increasing, which promotes the increase of high-quality agri-inputs. Meanwhile, the expansion of protected farming and modern farms, and the planting of novel varieties of vegetable and fruit drive the increase of WSF in China. What changes in demand have you seen as Fondin? The market of the novel fertilizer is changing now in China. At the national level, it is correct to reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers. In past years, fertilizer was overused with lower efficiency to get higher yield. In the future, the demand for fertilizer would be on two tracks: one is to enhance fertilizer efficiency by innovation, to reduce the usage amount to a reasonable level; the other one is to increase the application of high-quality organic matter, to improve soil quality and the growing environment of the crops, which is also one of the focuses of Fondin in the coming years.
I notice some of your products include humic acid (HA). Which market are these products designed for? Yes, this kind of product is listed in our product portfolio. We found that in some greenhouses that have been planted for a long time, more and more fertilizer is required in the application, but more and more problems with crop growth, and higher and higher nutrients content in the soil. As a result, the crop output is affected. When humic acid products are applied in these greenhouses, the total usage of fertilizer is declining, but the crops perform better, with more yield and higher quality.
What annual growth rate do you estimate for WSF in China in previous five years and the next five years? According to our experience, the annual growth rate of the last five years was around 25 percent, and it will probably slow down in the next five years. Do you have plans to launch a new WSF product in near future? We just invested in two new fully automatic production lines last year, which only need five workers to produce 200 tons of finished products in eight hours, with greatly improved production efficiency and lower costs. This is a remarkable innovation in the world. Our mission is to develop this factory to be the WSF manufacturing flagship in the Asia-Pacific region. In the future, we will build the new factory to further expand the production capacity. At the same time, biological products in agriculture is also our interest, and we believe these products would be the direction of WSF upgrading. ●
Mr. Chen Wei, managing director of Shanghai Fondin Bio-Tech Co., Ltd.
