Syllabus: GS-III, Subject: Economy, Topic: Agriculture-Inputs, Issue: Impact of Fertilizer use on Soil Health
Context: The theme of the World Soil Day- Caring for soils- Measure, Monitor, and Manage.
Key Highlights:
Indian soils and the role of fertilizers:
Soil Composition:
- Less than 5 percent of Indian soils have sufficient nitrogen.
- Only 40 percent have sufficient phosphate and 32% have sufficient potash.
- Just 20% are sufficient in organic carbon.
Micronutrient deficiency: Soils also suffer from a deficiency of micronutrients like sulphur, iron, zinc, boron, etc.
Fertilizer supplementation: Major essential nutrients like nitrogen (N), phosphate (P) and potash (K) and other micronutrients supplement the natural deficiency of micronutrients.
Issues with fertilizer use:
Subsidy burden: The subsidy on fertilizers amounts to 1.88 lakh crore, which was almost 4% of the budget.
Price distortion: While DAP and MOP were brought under the Nutrient-Based Subsidy scheme in 2010, urea was left out. It led to highly distorted use of essential fertilizers.
Imbalanced use: While the N is being overused, P and K are underused. It leads to suboptimal agricultural productivity.
Poor Nitrogen Use Efficiency: The Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) of current fertilizers is not more then 35 to 40 percent.
Atmospheric leakage: The additional fertilizer applied goes into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide, which is 273 times the carbon dioxide.
Diversions: At least 20-25% of urea is being diverted to non-agricultural uses and also leaked into neighbouring countries.
Measures needed:
Deregulation: The price control should be deregulated on the lines of cement, diesel, etc.
Exploring DBTs: Farmers may be given equivalent direct income transfers in the form of digital coupons to buy fertilizers.
Micronutrient use: Promoting micro-nutrients can result in productivity as well as farmers profits.
Data based approach: Triangulating data on fertiliser sales, soil health cards (SHC), PM-KISAN, land records, crop grown, bank accounts and mobile numbers of farmers should be integrated.
