Urea as a Fertilizer

What’s in today’s article?

• Why in News?
• Consumption of Fertilisers in India
• Two Main Concerns Over Rising Urea Consumption
• Government Efforts to Reduce Urea Consumption in India
• What is Urea Gold?
• Main Hurdle in the Fortification of Urea and Way Ahead

 

Why in News?

• Recently, the PM of India officially launched ‘Urea Gold’ fertiliser - basically urea fortified with sulphur, developed by the state-owned Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Ltd (RCF).
• Urea is a chemical nitrogen fertiliser, white in colour, which artificially provides nitrogen, a major nutrient required by plants.

 

Consumption of Fertilisers in India

• Like humans, crops need nutrients - primary (N, P, K), secondary (S, calcium, magnesium) and micro (iron, zinc, copper, manganese, boron, molybdenum) - for plant growth and grain yield.
• Fertilisers are essentially food for crops, which provides essential nutrients to the crops.
• High doses of these fertilisers produced more grains and led to the success of the Green Revolution in the 960s.
• However, crop yield response to fertiliser use has more than halved over time. For example, 1 kg of NPK nutrients yielded 12.1 kg of cereal grains in India during the 1960s, 5 kg during the 2010s.
• The underlying reason has been the disproportionate application of N by farmers.

 

Two Main Concerns Over Rising Urea Consumption:

• India’s nearly 36-mt annual consumption of urea is today next only to China’s 51 mt, with the latter’s production largely coal-based.
  • Out of this 36-mt sold last fiscal, imports accounted for 7.6 mt. Even with regard to domestically-manufactured urea, the feedstock used (natural gas) is mostly imported.
• The second concern is nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). Barely 35% of the N applied through urea in India is actually utilised by crops to produce harvested yields.
  • Declining NUE, from an estimated 48% in the early 1960s, has resulted in farmers applying more and more fertiliser for the same yield.

 

Government Efforts to Reduce Urea Consumption in India

• The introduction of the nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) regime in 2010.
  • Under NBS, the government fixed a per-kg subsidy (unlike the earlier product-specific subsidy regime) for each fertiliser nutrient: Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potash (K) and sulphur (S).
  • It aims to promote balanced fertilisation by discouraging farmers from applying too much urea (46% N), di-ammonium phosphate (DAP - 46% P plus 18% N) and muriate of potash (MOP - 60% K).
• In 2015, the Centre made it mandatory to coat all indigenously manufactured and imported urea with neem oil.
  • Consumption did dip in the initial two years, but that trend reversed from 2018-19.
• This was followed by replacing 50-kg bags with 45-kg ones in 2018, and the launch of liquid ‘Nano Urea’ by the Indian Farmers’ Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) in 2021.
  • Liquid nano urea is essentially urea in the form of a nanoparticle aimed at reducing the unbalanced and indiscriminate use of conventional urea, increasing crop productivity, and reducing soil, water, and air pollution.
• None of the above government measures for checking illegal diversion for non-agricultural use, increasing nitrogen use efficiency have failed in reducing urea consumption.

 

What is Urea Gold?

• Normal urea contains 46% of a single plant nutrient: Nitrogen or N. Urea Gold has 37% N plus 17% sulphur (S) and aims at two things.
• The first is to deliver S along with N. Indian soils are deficient in S, which oilseeds and pulses - the country is significantly import-dependent in both - particularly require.
• The second is to improve the NUE of urea. Coating of S over urea ensures a more gradual release of N.
  • By prolonging the urea action, the plants stay greener for a longer time - reducing the frequency of application and use of Urea, say, only two bags (against three), for an acre of paddy or wheat.
• RCF is yet to commercially introduce Urea Gold or reveal any pricing details.

 

Main Hurdle in the Fortification of Urea and Way Ahead:

• That has to do with pricing. For example, the MRP of Urea Gold is expected to be fixed at Rs 400-500 per 40-kg bag (against around Rs 254 for a 45-kg bag of ordinary neem-coated urea).
• The government can probably set free the MRPs for all coated fertilisers.
  • Since the regular urea or DAP will continue to be sold at heavily subsidised rates, companies cannot charge too much of a premium on their fortified fertiliser products.
• The coating should be carried out at the factory itself, which will guarantee even more uniform distribution of micronutrients and save the farmer the hassles of mixing.

 

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Q1) What is food fortification?

Fortification is the practice of deliberately increasing the content of one or more micronutrients (i.e., vitamins and minerals) in a food or condiment to improve the nutritional quality of the food supply and provide a public health benefit with minimal risk to health.

 

Q2) What is the PM-PRANAM scheme?

The PM Programme for Restoration, Awareness, Nourishment and Amelioration of Mother Earth (PM-PRANAM) was announced in the Union Budget 2023-24. It aims to reduce the use of chemical fertilisers by incentivizing states to adopt alternative fertilisers.

 

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Source: How to make Urea more efficient as a fertiliser, and why that’s needed