Correcting imbalance in fertilizer use – SHC alone won’t help

In 2015, prime minister, Modi had launched National Soil-Health-Card [NSHC] scheme with the objective of galvanizing farmers to replenish seriously degraded soils caused by excessive fertilizer use over several years. It seeks to promote a more judicious mix of fertilizers by testing soil samples of each farm household across the country on 12 parameters and prescribing recommendations on use.

To test soil, the country’s cropped area is divided into grids of 10 hectares (ha) for rain-dependent farms and 2.5 ha for irrigated land. One soil sample from each grid is taken and test results are distributed to farmers whose lands fall under the relevant grid. These show which ingredients are depleted or are present in excess. Their soils need to be tested every two years. The idea is to cover the entire net-sown area of 141 million hectares.

Already, the government has distributed 100 million such soil health cards [SHC], one to each farm household, and hopes to distribute 20 million more in current year. Eventually, all 140 million farm households will be covered.

A study of the scheme conducted by National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management [MANAGE], Hyderabad involving 3,184 farmers across 199 villages in 16 states shows that farmers are not only growing more with less inputs, but they also have cut down cultivation costs. Farmers planting cotton, paddy and soya-bean have managed to increase yield by 5-7%, lower costs by 4-10% and increase income  between 30% and 40%.

The results may seem to demonstrate the potential of NSHC in not only reversing the worrying trend of degradation of soils across regions but also substantially increase farmers’ income. But, such a sweeping generalization could be premature.

The sample size viz., a little over 3000 farmers in a total of 140 million is miniscule and may not represent the actual situation on the ground. An overwhelming factor behind excessive fertilizer use is the policy followed by the union government of subsidizing fertilizers and even worse, giving much higher subsidy on urea [main source of nitrogen or ‘N’] than the subsidy on complex fertilizers [source of phosphate or ‘P’ and potash or ‘K’]. This results in selling urea at a price much lower than complex fertilizers.

This policy flaw lies at the root of creating excessive demand for urea [unrelated to actual requirement] which gets translated into actual use with supply arrangements – mostly controlled by the government – dovetailed to meet this demand. The result is NPK use ratio of 6.7:2.4:1 [consumption ‘N’:17 million ton, ‘P’: 6 million ton and ‘K’: 2.5 million ton] which is highly skewed towards ‘N’ as against an ideal ratio of 4:2:1.

In this backdrop, a mere act of advising farmers on what their soils needs does not automatically ensure that they will act on these recommendations. If, as per SHC, a farmer’s soil needs more of P and K but complex fertilizers carrying these nutrients are expensive or the supplier/manufacturer does not find supplying them viable [courtesy, less subsidy support], he won’t use them. On the other hand, he will continue to use more of urea [due to high subsidy support] even if soil does not need.

Indian soils are generally deficient in secondary and micro-nutrients such as sulphur, zinc, magnesium, calcium etc. Yet, the subsisting policy environment does not encourage their use. Either, there is no subsidy on these nutrients or less subsidy [as on sulphur]. This leads to excessive focus on main fertilizers carrying N, P and K to the detriment of secondary and micro-nutrients.

At present, about 20 complex fertilizers carrying N, P and K in different proportions are available. What if, soil test throws up demand of the nutrients in quantity which cannot be supplied by these products? Applying any of these would result in either short supply [if used product contains less] or wastage [if the product contains more]. Supplying a product of exact specification [albeit new] would take long as it has to be first approved by a technical committee in the ministry of agriculture where after it is included under the Fertilizer Control Order [FCO] – a law that regulates quality.

Without addressing these policy distortions, mere prescription of recommendations [via SHC] in isolation won’t be of much help in preventing excessive and imbalance in fertilizer use. It sounds like a boat sailing against the water current. The desired results can be achieved only when the distortions are eliminated and policy environment made conducive.

So, the government should reduce subsidy on urea and concurrently, increase subsidy on complex fertilizers. This will bring up urea price from its current artificially low level and at the same time, lower price of complexes from their present high level. As a consequence, the use of P and K will get a push while that of N will decline thereby reducing the imbalance. But, this won’t address the deficiency in secondary and micro-nutrients and help farmers in aligning use with soil need.

Nothing short of full empowerment of farmers is needed to combat their problems esp reversing degradation in soil health. This will be possible only when the government takes the next logical step of abolishing all controls on fertilizers and give subsidy directly to the farmers. Currently, it spends close to Rs 70,000 crore on fertilizers subsidy. Per farmer, it works out to Rs 5,100 which can be credited into his/her account.

While, on one hand, this will give him the much needed flexibility to apportion it for buying fertilizer of his choice [for instance, he can use it entirely for P and K or spend only on secondary/micro-nutrients] – as per SHC – on the other, manufacturers will be better equipped under a market driven environment to fulfill his needs.

There will be perfect synergy between NSHC and the policy environment [like the boat sailing with the water current] yielding substantial benefits in terms of more output at less cost and most important, improvement in soil fertility.

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