China will boost agricultural innovations and expand the use of advanced pest and weed control technologies to make its use of fertilizer and pesticide more productive, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Wednesday.

The latest data shows that the utilization rate of fertilizer used on land growing rice, corn and wheat — the amount of nutrients these crops can absorb —now stands at 39.2 percent, up by 1.4 percentage points from 2017, said Pan Wenbo, head of the ministry's Department of Crop Production.

The application of pesticide also has reached 39.8 percent this year, up by 1 percentage points from 2017, he added.

The smarter use of fertilizers and pesticides has helped cut 1.4 billion yuan worth of urea output — a major component of traditional fertilizer , as well as 1.7 billion yuan worth of pesticide output.

"Estimates from experts have shown that the more efficient application of fertilizer has helped cut emissions equivalent to that of 650,000 metric tons of coal," Pan said.

As China is edging closer to the goal of achieving a utilization rate of 40 percent for both fertilizer and pesticide by the end of 2020, Pan said more efforts will be devoted to phase out outdated sprayers and promote wider adoption of advanced agricultural machines.

"We also will step up research in developing fertilizers and pesticides that are highly productive and less toxic," Pan added.