An investigation of crop stalk utilization in China’s agriculture

It was reported that an investigation of crop stalk utilization in recent years has carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture of China. This investigation aimed to improve the integrate utilize of crop stalks and using efficiency in near future. The crop stalks included in this investigation mainly include the stalks from rice, wheat, corn, tuber crops, oil crops and cotton.

The investigate results indicated that:

1. China’s total collectable crop stalk resources are 687 million tons. That include 265 million tons of corn stalk (38.6%), 205 million tons of rice stalk (29.8%) and 150 million tons of wheat stalk (21.8%).
2. The utilize ratio of crop stalks was 69% in the country. That include 211 million tons be used as forage feed (30.69%), 129 million tons be used for fuel (18.72%), 102 million tons be used as organic fertilizers (14.78%), 15 million tons be used as materials of edible mushroom (2.14%) and 16 million tons be used as raw materials for industry such as paper making (2.37%).

Based on this investigation, better utilize strategy for crop stalks will be made in China, and the industry of crop stalk integrate utilization will be greatly encouraged by central and local governments in near future.