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Nitrogen fertilizer use per area of cropland

FAO
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Agricultural Production

What you should know about this indicator

Item: Nutrient nitrogen N (total)

Description: Total nitrogen (N) from all fertilizer products

Metric: Use per area of cropland

Source
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2025) – with major processing by
Last updated
March 17, 2025
Next expected update
March 2026
Date range
1961–2022
Unit
kilograms per hectare

Related research and writing

Can we reduce fertilizer use without sacrificing food production?

Hannah Ritchie

Explore charts that include this data

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The Fertilizers by Nutrient dataset contains information on the totals in nutrients for Production, Trade and Agriculture Use of inorganic (chemical or mineral) fertilizers, over the time series 1961-present.

The data are provided for the three primary plant nutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (expressed as P2O5) and potassium (expressed as K2O). Both straight and compound fertilizers are included. There is information on the methodology available at:

Retrieved on
March 17, 2025
Retrieved from
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by . To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Land, Inputs and Sustainability: Fertilizers by Nutrient (2025).

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by , please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Nitrogen fertilizer use per area of cropland”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser (2023) - “Agricultural Production”. Data adapted from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved from /grapher/nitrogen-fertilizer-application-per-hectare-of-cropland [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2025) – with major processing by

Full citation

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2025) – with major processing by . “Nitrogen fertilizer use per area of cropland – FAO” [dataset]. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Land, Inputs and Sustainability: Fertilizers by Nutrient” [original data]. Retrieved April 28, 2025 from /grapher/nitrogen-fertilizer-application-per-hectare-of-cropland