{"id":239556,"date":"2023-04-25T19:51:49","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T14:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=239556"},"modified":"2023-04-26T18:21:12","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T12:51:12","slug":"why-urea-rules-indias-farms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-urea-rules-indias-farms\/","title":{"rendered":"Why urea rules India\u2019s farms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cWhy urea rules India\u2019s farms<\/strong>\u201d published in The Indian Express <\/strong>on\u00a025th<\/sup> April 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: GS 3 \u2013 Agriculture inputs<\/strong><\/p>\n

Relevance: <\/strong>concerns associated with <\/strong>the use of urea.<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: The efforts of the government such as launching Nano Urea and coating all indigenously manufactured and imported urea with neem oil<\/strong> have not been successful in reducing the urea consumption.<\/p>\n

What do the current statistics say about the use of urea?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sales of urea crossed a record 35.7 million tons (mt) in the fiscal year 2022-23.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

After neem-coating was fully enforced from December 2015, consumption of the urea dipped in the initial two years. However, the trend reversed from 2018-19. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Urea sales in 2022-23 were about 5.1 mt higher than in 2015-16 and over 9 mt than in 2009-10.<\/strong><\/p>\n

All other fertilisers, except single super phosphate (SSP), have registered much lower increases or even declines.<\/p>\n

What is nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) and why hasn\u2019t it been successful?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Read Here: <\/strong>About NBS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The data reveals worsening of nutrient imbalance, with urea consumption rising by over a third since 2009-10.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This has been due to a slower rise in the prices of urea<\/strong>. The price increased only by 16.5%, after the introduction of NBS.<\/p>\n

The current government has also brought back price controls on DAP.<\/strong> Companies are not allowed to charge more than Rs 27,000 per tonne.<\/p>\n

These reasons have led to an increase in the sales of fertilisers in the fiscal year 2022-23.<\/p>\n

What are the harms of using excess fertilizers?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Fertilisers are essentially food for crops. They, like humans, need nutrients for growth and grain yield.<\/p>\n

Initially, the crop yield on the use of fertilisers was good<\/strong>, especially during the Green Revolution. However, with the time, crop yield response to fertiliser use has more than halved.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example,<\/strong> 1 kg of NPK nutrients yielded 12.1 kg of cereal grains in India during the 1960s, but only 5 kg during the 2010s.<\/p>\n

Further, as per recent research, the Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE<\/strong>) in India has fallen from 48.2% in 1962-63 to 34.7% in 2018. The 34.7% NUE was below the global average of 45.3% and 53.3% for North America in 2018.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/em><\/strong> NUE refers to the proportion of N applied mainly through urea that is actually utilised by crops to produce harvested yields.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What can be the way ahead?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

First,<\/strong> the consumption of urea can be reduced by increasing its prices<\/strong>. However, it is not easy due to political reasons.<\/p>\n

Second, i<\/strong>nstead of increasing prices, efforts may be put towards improving NUE<\/strong>. This will enable farmers to harvest the same or more grain yields with fewer bags.<\/p>\n

Nano Urea<\/strong><\/a> is also primarily aimed at boosting NUE. For instance,<\/strong> a single 500-ml Nano Urea bottle containing just 4% N can effectively replace at least one 45-kg bag of regular 46% N urea.<\/p>\n

Third,<\/strong> the government should also make incorporation of urease and nitrification inhibitors compulsory in urea.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are chemical compounds that inhibit the activity of urease <\/strong>(a soil enzyme that breaks down urea into ammonium and further to ammonia) and nitrifying bacteria<\/strong> (that convert ammonium to nitrate), making more N available to the crops.<\/p>\n

Source: The Indian Express<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cWhy urea rules India\u2019s farms\u201d published in The Indian Express on\u00a025th April 2023. Syllabus: GS 3 \u2013 Agriculture inputs Relevance: concerns associated with the use of urea. News: The efforts of the government such as launching Nano Urea and coating all indigenously manufactured and imported urea with neem… Continue reading Why urea rules India\u2019s farms<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10500,6615,11504],"class_list":["post-239556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-indian-express","tag-nutrient-based-subsidy","tag-urea-subsidy","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}