For decades, farmers in India have been resorting to indiscriminate and excessive use of chemical fertilizers [source of plant nutrients such as nitrogen ‘N’, phosphate ‘P’, potash ‘K’ besides a host of secondary and micro-nutrients; which put simply, are food for crops in as much the same way as cereals, fruits, vegetables are essential for human beings] leading to deterioration in soil health, adverse impact on the environment and imperiling public health.
The mother soil is the repository of these nutrients [or ‘food for crops’], the precise quantum in any given location depends on a multitude of factors such as their stock to begin with when farmers started cultivating the land [say 100 years ago or even earlier], addition from application of chemical fertilizers [or organic manure] and their uptake by the crops grown. By conducting soil analysis, it should be possible to find out the stock of each nutrient viz. ‘N’, ‘P’, ‘K’ etc on a given date.
This juxtaposed with the requirement for growing a particular crop, the farmer can deduce as to how much of each nutrient needs to be supplied externally albeit from chemical fertilizers [or not to be applied at all, a scenario when the soil itself is in a position to meet all the requirements for uptake by the crops]. But, this procedure is rarely followed which causes serious mismatch leading to either deficient use of a given nutrient or its excessive use.
There is excessive use of urea – a dominant source of ‘N’ [50 kg bag contains 23 kg ‘N’] vis-à-vis complex fertilizers such as dia-ammonium phosphate or DAP – main source of ‘P’ [50 kg DAP bag has 23 kg ‘P’ besides 9 kg of ‘N’] and muriate of potash or MOP, main source of ‘K’ [50 kg MOP bag has 30 kg ‘K’]. This has led to increasing imbalance in NPK use ratio. On all-India basis, currently this ratio is 6.7:2.4:1 against an ideal 4:2:1 and attendant adverse effect on yield, health of soil and humans. This has even pushed some states on the brink of chemical epidemic. For instance, in Punjab, where per hectare fertilizer use is even higher than the national average, chemicals have found their way into soil, ground water, food chain and are identified as key factor responsible for widespread cancer in the state.
To arrest this trend, in February 2015, Modi – government had launched the National Soil Health Program [NSHP] under which it distributed soil health cards [SHCs] to over 140 million farmers. Under it, farmers are goaded to test their soils every two years in state-run mobile and village-station labs. Based on the tests, which analyze the soils on various nutrients including secondary and micro-nutrients, SHCs offer customized recommendations on fertilizer use.
According to a study by the National Productivity Council [NPC] [carried out in 76 districts, spanning 19 states and covering 170 soil testing labs and involving 1,700 farmers] farmers have cut the use of chemical fertilizers by up to 10%. Further, farm productivity has gone up between 5% and 6% on assessed crops, resulting in higher incomes.
Another study by the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management [NIAEM] [it covered 3,184 farmers cultivating cotton, paddy and soybean across 199 villages in 16 states] shows that farmers who applied fertilizers and nutrients as per recommendations written on their SHCs reduced cultivation costs by 4-10% and increased their net incomes between 30 and 40%.
Considering that the study covers a tiny fraction of farmers, one wonders whether these results are truly representative of all farmers in the concerned states. Assuming that this is the case, there is no clear indication that urea consumption has declined by that much which is badly needed to reduce the imbalance in nutrient use. Moreover, the 10% reduction [even if it is entirely in urea use] is nowhere near the target the government has set for itself.
Delivering the 38th edition of ‘Mann Ki Baat’, the prime minister said, “Can our farmers take a pledge to bring down urea use by half by 2022? If, they promise to use less urea in agriculture, the fertility of the land will increase. The lives of farmers will start improving.” [Modi had made the statement in the backdrop of ‘World Soil Day’ on December 5 (2017) and deteriorating health of the soil world over, an overarching factor contributing to this being excessive use of urea].
This is not to suggest that NSHP can’t play a potent role in goading farmers towards balanced fertilizer use. While, the government should continue with the scheme, it needs to attend to an overarching factor which lies at the root of increasing imbalance. This has to do primarily with the policy environment with regard to the pricing and availability of each of the fertilizer types.
To make fertilizers affordable to farmers, the centre controls their maximum retail price [MRP] at a low level unrelated to their cost of production and distribution which is higher. The excess of cost over MRP is reimbursed to the manufacturer as subsidy. In case of urea, the subsidy varies from unit to unit and is administered under the New Pricing Scheme [NPS] whereas for decontrolled complex fertilizers, muriate of potash [MOP] and single superphosphate [SSP], a ‘uniform’ subsidy fixed on per nutrient basis is given to all manufacturers under the Nutrient Based Scheme [NBS].
The cost of transportation [it includes primary movement by rails from the plant and secondary movement from the unloading rake point by road to the retailer] is reimbursed to urea manufacturers under a uniform freight policy. On the other hand, manufacturers of decontrolled complex fertilizers/MOP [excluding SSP] get reimbursement of freight cost only towards primary movement on the basis of actual rail freight, as per the railway receipts.
Thus, manufacturers of complex fertilizers, MOP and SSP receive a step-motherly treatment vis-à-vis manufacturers of ‘controlled’ urea. In case of complexes/MOP/SSP, even as the government normally keeps the subsidy unchanged, increase in the cost leads to ever increasing MRP. In sharp contrast, it keeps the MRP of urea at a low level [the current price Rs 5360 per ton is more or less the same as it was nearly two decades ago] even as all escalations in cost are absorbed by increasing subsidy.
This results in disproportionately low MRP of urea vis-a-vis the MRP of complex fertilizers, MoP and SSP prompting farmers to use more of the former and less of the latter.
The discrimination against complex fertilizers and MOP is also evident in their not getting freight subsidy on secondary movement to retail point [manufacturers of SSP don’t even get primary freight for movement from plant to rail-head] as also in denial of natural gas – the feed-stock used for making of ammonia – an intermediate used in manufacture of complex fertilizers – to their plants.
In short, in almost every aspect, be it subsidy, reimbursement of movement cost or feed-stock supply – non-urea fertilizers have been at the receiving end. Their woes are further exacerbated by high dependence on imports [100% in ‘K’ and nearly 90% in ‘P’] and resultant exploitation by global cartels by way of charging high price. This discrimination has persisted for close to three decades following their decontrol in 1992 even as urea remained under control with disproportionately high subsidy all through.
The ‘P’ and ‘K’ nutrients supplied by non-urea fertilizers are as much important as ‘N’ supplied from urea. Merely because, one fine morning, the government decided to decontrol non-urea fertilizers even while retaining urea under control does not render the former any less important. Yet, it is this flawed perception in the minds of our policy makers [read: urea is more crucial than non-urea fertilizers] that has contributed to the present mess. The SHC can at best guide the farmers on proper fertilizer use, but it can do little to stem the opposite impact of flawed policies.
These glaring anomalies can be addressed by dismantling controls on MRP and the existing system of routing subsidy through manufacturers for both urea and non-urea fertilizers; instead, give subsidy directly to farmers via direct benefit transfer [DBT]. With this, the farmer will be empowered in the true sense and will be free to use subsidy for buying fertilizer types needed by the soil – based on the recommendation embedded in the SHC. There could not be a better way of reining in excess fertilizer use and reducing imbalance in NPK ratio.
Modi should use his political capital to crack the whip on this long-pending reform.