Jonel Subić

Ecological, Economic and Marketing Aspects of the Application of Biofertilisers in the Production of Organic Food

Having ability to produce on his own necessary products, man has become independent of nature and its generosity. By this ability man provided for instance his independent development within nature. Due to the further development of his knowledge he managed to elevate the production to the level of the science and therefore to aim many processes towards the desirable direction. Today, there are no more or less important plant species, but only more or less important technology of their production. Crop yield expressed through the gain/profit, which is anyway an ultimate objective of the production, depends, first of all, on the investments into the production. Fertilisation is one of very important cultivation measures. The application rate of mineral fertilisers can be distributed in the soil in the determined concentrations, which is their advantage over biological nitrogen. Nitrogen mineral fertilisers are more soluble and due to their greater solubility they are more accessible to plants as plants consume much less energy when they absorb easy available nitrogen forms. However, in order to obtain high yields, mineral fertilisers, especially of nitrogen ones, are often applied in the agricultural production. It is considered that the application of mineral fertilisers is the most advantageous and the fastest way to increase crop yields. The significance of the application of mineral fertilisers in the crop production in the European Union (EU-15) is confirmed by the records made in 2001: out of the totally applied amount of 15,286,903 t, 4,178,000 t were applied in France; 589,717 t in Ireland; 1,405,913 t in Italy; 416,000 t in the Netherlands; 2,613,413 t in Germany, etc. (www.fao.org). On the other hand, only 272,000 t of mineral fertilisers were applied in Serbia (www.poljoprivreda.info). The structure of the mineral fertiliser application in Serbia is unsatisfactory and presents a problem as complex and more expensive NPK fertilisers are used in smaller amounts, while the use of nitrogen fertilisers is much greater. Namely, 63%, i.e. 37% of the total use of mineral fertilisers were related to nitrogen, i.e. NPK fertilisers, respectively. Plants use 40-50% of nitrogen incorporated by mineral fertilisers, then, soil microorganisms transform 15-20 % of nitrogen fertilisers into gaseous compound, while 20-30% are integrated into the soil organic matter. The remaining amounts of nitrogen are leached or