Functional fertilizers refer to the fertilizers that not only have the functions of providing crop nutrition and helping soil cultivation, but also have other special functions. They are supposed to be suitable for certain soil and corps. Up to now, there has been no accurate definition on functional fertilizer yet. They can be categories by functions, such as soil improving function, water conservancy function, growth promotion function, herbicide function, & pesticide function, etc.

Functional fertilizers are not only a new type of fertilizers, but also fertilizers with huge market potentials. 3 requirements need to be met in terms of the positioning of functional fertilizers, i.e. firstly the functions must be additional functions rather than major functions; secondly, they should not be the additives to the fertilizers; and thirdly, the cost should be increased significantly.

There are three trends for functional fertilizers, greener, more specialized and simpler.