According to ancient Greek legend, Hercules heracross first discovered the use of animal manure as fertilizer. Heracross is the son of Zeus, the Lord of the gods, and a hero who is half god and half man. He has created 12 miracles, one of which is to clean the cowshed where King ogias of Ellis has 300 cows in one day. He diverted the elphius River, washed away cow dung with the river, deposited it on the nearby land, and made crops harvest. Of course, this is a myth, but it also shows that people at that time had realized the role of manure in increasing crop yield. The ancient Greeks also found that the crops grown on the old battlefield were particularly prosperous, so they realized that human and animal corpses were very effective fertilizers. The Bible also mentions the fertilization method of spraying animal blood on the ground.

For thousands of years, both Europe and Asia have regarded manure as the main fertilizer. Since the 18th century, the world's population has grown rapidly. At the same time, the industrial revolution that broke out in Europe has caused a large number of people to flow into cities, exacerbated the shortage of food supply, and become a cause of social unrest. Chemists began to carry out scientific research on the nutrition of crops in the middle of the 18th century. The two popular plant nutrition theories in the early 19th century are "humus" theory and "vitality" theory. The former believes that the carbon element needed by plants is not from carbon dioxide in the air, but from humus; The latter believes that plants can use their own unique vitality to produce the components of plant ash. In 1840, the famous German chemist liebishi published the book "the application of chemistry in agriculture and physiology", and founded the plant mineral nutrition theory and the return theory, believing that only minerals are the only nutrients for green plants, and organic matter has nutritional effect on plants only when it decomposes and releases mineral substances. Libishi also pointed out that the mineral nutrients absorbed by crops from the soil must be returned to the soil in the form of fertilizer, otherwise the soil will become increasingly barren. Thus, the theory of "humus" and "vitality" was negated, causing a revolution in agricultural theory and providing a theoretical basis for the birth of chemical fertilizer.

In 1828, the German chemist F.W ö hler (1800-1882) synthesized urea by artificial method for the first time in the world. According to the "vitality theory" prevailing in the chemical industry at that time, urea and other organic substances contained some vitality, which could not be synthesized artificially. Weiler's research broke the absolute boundary between inorganic and organic matter. But at that time, people had not realized the fertilizer use of urea. It was not until more than 50 years later that synthetic urea was put on the market as a chemical fertilizer.

In 1838, the British squire l.b.ross used sulfuric acid to treat phosphate ore to make phosphate fertilizer, which became the first chemical fertilizer in the world.
In 1840, the German chemist j.von Liebig (1803-1873) published the book "Application of chemistry in agriculture and physiology", which founded the plant mineral nutrition theory and the return theory, completely denied the prevailing two plant nutrition theories of "humus" and "vitality", and laid a theoretical foundation for the invention and application of chemical fertilizer. Libich also invented potash fertilizer in 1850.

Around 1850, Routh invented the earliest nitrogen fertilizer. In 1909, the German chemist F. Haber (1868-1934) and C. Bosch (1874-1940) jointly founded the "Haber Bosch" ammonia synthesis method, which solved the technical problem of large-scale production of nitrogen fertilizer.

Since the 1950s, chemical fertilizer has been applied on a large scale. According to statistics, the role of chemical fertilizer accounts for about 30% of various agricultural production increase measures.