Improving efficiency of fertilizer use in India

📌 Summary:

• Context: The ongoing war in West Asia and rising costs of fuel and fertilizers create an opportunity for India to enhance fertilizer use efficiency and moderate demand, rather than merely scaling up subsidies

• Core argument: India's fertilizer regime is structurally inefficient — over two-thirds of the ₹2 lakh crore spent annually on fertilizer subsidy is not harvested as food, and is lost to pollution (runoff, volatilisation, nitrous oxide emissions). Efficiency, not larger subsidies, is the sustainable path

• Production-import dependence: (1) Urea (nitrogen) — India produces ~80% of its requirement domestically and imports the rest, while expanding domestic capacity towards self-reliance; but the urea industry relies heavily on imported natural gas as feedstock — so geopolitically exposed (2) Phosphatic fertilizers — situation far worse: India lacks mineral rock phosphate reserves and therefore imports almost the entire feedstock

• Sustainability constraint on alternatives:

  • Green ammonia produced via electrolysis of water using solar power is an option, but not sustainable in water-stressed areas because hydrogen production via electrolysis is water-intensive
  • Implication: green-ammonia projects must be sited carefully, not as a blanket pan-India solution

• India's specific vulnerability: Nitrogen (urea) + phosphorus together define India's food security — any spike in feedstock prices or import disruption ripples directly into kharif/rabi yields and rural incomes

• Solutions proposed: (1) Improve fertilizer use efficiency — soil-health-card-based dosing, neem-coated urea, nano-urea/nano-DAP scale-up (2) Moderate demand through pricing signals and balanced NPK use (3) Site green-ammonia plants only in water-secure renewable-rich zones (4) Diversify phosphate imports and explore strategic reserves (5) Treat the present West-Asia shock as a reform-window — like 1991 — rather than only a subsidy stress

• International / comparative angle: The piece situates India's subsidy approach against the global push to decarbonise fertilizer manufacturing via green ammonia — a frontier area for industrial policy

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS-III — Agriculture subsidies, food security, fertilizer industry, energy linkages, green hydrogen/ammonia transition. GS-II overlay — public expenditure efficiency. Useful for Mains essays on agriculture sustainability.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• India's annual fertilizer subsidy bill: ~₹2 lakh crore
• India produces ~80% of urea domestically; rest imported; phosphatic fertilizers almost wholly import-dependent (rock phosphate)
• Green ammonia = ammonia (NH₃) produced using green hydrogen (electrolysis of water powered by renewables), without fossil-fuel feedstock
• Main feedstock for conventional urea in India: natural gas (largely LNG-imported)
• National Green Hydrogen Mission launched in January 2023 — outlay ~₹19,744 cr
• Nano-Urea launched by IFFCO in 2021; Nano-DAP in 2023

🔑 Key Term: Green Ammonia — ammonia produced through the Haber–Bosch process using hydrogen generated by water electrolysis powered by renewable electricity (instead of natural gas reforming); enables low-carbon fertilizer and is a candidate clean-energy carrier for shipping and power.