Integrated Plant Nutrition Systems (IPNS)

TASKS

• promote adequate and balanced nutrient supply and evaluate impacts of imbalanced use;
• develop technical and managerial innovations to:
  • improve yields and the productivity and efficiency of nutrients mobilized from all sources,
  • improve production capacity of cropping systems,
  • limit plant nutrient losses, with particular attention to environmental impact;
• develop on-farm plant nutrition strategies in conjunction with soil fertility management practices to:
  • reverse nutrient mining and promote nutrient capital build-up,
  • improve nutrient flows to meet crop's needs.

• IPNS an sustainable agriculture;
• guide on efficient plant nutrient management;
• plant nutrient management of cereal-legume rotations, rice-cropping systems, and tuber-cereal rotation;
• biofertilizers and organic recycling in Asia and the Pacific;
• decision support system for plant nutrition management studies.

• crop responses and production functions;
• nutrient supply, recycling, losses and exports by crops;
• reference nutrient balance sheets;
• content, availability and agronomic evaluation of plant nutrient sources.

• promote national IPNS programmes;
• advise governments and the fertilizer industry on balanced and efficient fertilization.

Promotion of sound and intensified plant nutrition management

OBJECTIVES- CLIENTS- OUTPUTS

• organize farmers through local organizations to create revolving funds for input procurement and secure them through solidarity and risk management;
• support the financial empowerment of farmers through a combination of medium-term loans, application of IPNS and encourage them to invest profits from fertilizer use in farming;
• support systems in which successful farmers advise their associations, reinforcing extension services;
• minimise farm-gate fertilizer prices by strengthening fertilizer distribution systems, promoting a monitoring system, helping governments design rules and regulations and assisting progress an the privatization of the fertilizer sector;
• simplify fertilizer distribution and improve efficiency through functional links between farmers associations and the fertilizer sector.

• review efforts by farmer associations for sound crop fertilization, 1986- 1996.

• productivity and economic results of farmer associations.

• develop programmes to improve plant nutrient capital for small-scale farmers.

Strategies, economics and logistics

• assist governments to develop strategies for the mobilization of plant nutrient sources and policies that foster efficient fertilizer use by farmers;
• analyse the international fertilizer market and disseminate the annual fertilizer supply and demand forecasts;
• assess the economic returns to farmers from plant nutrient practices and the impact of external input prices on the purchasing capacity of farmers and crop production management.

• economic methodologies to promote integrated plant nutrition systems in the context of improved use of land and water resources;
• agricultural policy impact analysis of the mobilization and use of plant nutrient sources by farmers and the corresponding crop productivity;
• assessment of the economic costs and benefits at farm and national levels of forecast and actual fertilizer use.

• fertilizer prices:
  • international spot market
  • farm-gate cost components.

• Promote the establishment of national capacities for the sound development of intensified farming systems through accurate plant nutrition management;
• serve as the Secretariat of the Commission on Fertilizer:

• disseminate information on developments in the international fertilizer market and their consequences on procurement methods and investment opportunities.