Page 184 - CW E-Magazine (14-1-2025)

Special Report

Sustainable fertiliser and agriculture

ndia’s fertiliser sector, being pivotal paramount importance to meet the grow- to optimize nutrient use, is vital. Products
in its agriculture transformation, ing need of burgeoning population in like nano-urea and nano-DAP have low
Ihas been playing a key role in terms of food, feed, fuel and fi bre. There environmental footprint during its life-
moving the country from food defi cit to has been inter-year and inter-State varia- cycle and thus would play an important
self-suffi ciency. Spurred by the Green tion in agriculture growth over the years. role in sustainable agriculture in coming
Revolution in the 1960s, India rapidly Use effi ciency of nitrogen is around 50% years.
increased food production through exten- in upland crops and less than 35% in
sive use of fertilisers, high yielding water-logged rice; phosphorous 15-20%; Soil is the most important medium
variety (HYV) of seeds, and improved and potash about 60%. Use effi ciency of required for agriculture. Sustaining
micronutrients varies from 2-5%.
irrigation. There has been considerable the quality of soil is very important for
ensuring growth in crop productivity.
increase in use of fertilisers and HYV Many other challenges are cropping Use of bio-fertilisers and organic ferti-
seeds along with area under irrigation. up such as: limitation of soil and water lisers needs to be given more impetus to
This strategy raised food grain produc- resources; stagnation of net cultivated area; supplement conventional fertilisers and
tion from 108-mt in 1970-71 to 332-mt adverse effects of climate change; loss of improve nutrient use effi ciency. Neem-
in 2023-24, positioning India as a major biodiversity; fl oods in certain areas and coated urea, made mandatory from 2015,
rice exporter and boosting farmers’ in- droughts in others; deterioration of soil has been helping to improve nitrogen use
come. Production of fruit and vegetable health; decline in crop response ratio to effi ciency. Further, use effi ciency of nitro-
crops has increased from about 29-mt to fertilisers; lack of capital investment, etc. gen through sulphur-coated urea is higher
112-mt, and 59-mt to 210-mt from 1991-92 than conventional urea and production of
to 2023-24, respectively, showing a It is a fact that there exists a direct the same has started in one plant for use
growth of more than 3 times over the correlation between fertiliser use and agri- by farmers.
years. Same is the story for other crops. culture production and it will continue
to be so in future. However, holistic Dependence on imports
Role for conventional fertilisers approach has to be adopted to address India is largely dependent on imports
The population of India is expected to the challenges. for critical raw materials, such as natural
be 1.46-bn by 2030 and 1.61-bn by 2050. gas, rock phosphate and potash where
This would translate to gross requirement Resource conservation dependency is to the tune of 80%, 90%
of 353-mt and 418-mt of foodgrains at the Resource conservation is very impor- and almost 100%, respectively. Urea,
end of respective years. The food grain tant for sustainable agriculture. Develop- DAP and NP/NPKs are also imported.
production to meet the requirement would ment of new products, which are more apt In the past few years and more recently,
not be possible without contribution from
fertilisers. An estimate of the produc-
tion of nutrients through conventional
fertilisers and alternate products like
bio-fertilisers, city compost, nanoferti-
lisers, etc. were made by Fertiliser
Association of India (FAI). Considering
the aggressive growth rate of alternative
fertilisers, the major requirement of
nutrients at the end of each year would
be fulfi lled by conventional fertilisers.
It is estimated that for the year 2030 and
2050, the projected gross requirement of
N+P+K nutrients would be 36-mt and
50-mt, respectively of which about 88%
during 2030 and 81% during 2050 would
be met by conventional fertilisers.

Challenges facing agriculture
Sustainable growth in agriculture is of

184 Chemical Weekly January 14, 2025

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