The people of India apparently are not quite aware of the fact that farmers of India had produced a record 230.67 million tonnes (mt) of foodgrains during the year 2007-08,which is about 13 mt more than the final figure of 217.28 mt. The 2007-08 figures is according to the fourth advance estimate published on July 9, 2008. The final figure for 07-08 is to come in February 2009 and one may well expect that the figure will be higher than at present.

Provided, and this is rather important, farmers are supplied with adequate quantities of fertilizers at the right time and at the right places during the current kharif and the on-coming rabi seasons.

One cannot but express fears that the country may run out of requisite quantities of fertilizers in view of the fact that at the very beginning of the kharif season one farmer in Karnataka was killed by police firing on agitating farmers demanding supply of fertilizers. This was a rather unprecedented incident because one does not recall farmers being fired upon to demand fertilizers and not higher foodgrain prices or the like.

There is increasing shortage in the availability of fertilizers in the country and according to an article in the Fertiliser News of Nov.2006, the demand for fertilisers in 2008 would be 26,275,000 tonnes of urea, 8,320,000 tonnes of Di-Ammonium Phosphate, 8,550,000 tonnes of complex fertilizers and 3,360,000 tonnes of Muriate of Potash. The Single super phosphate demand would be 3,340,000 tonnes. The supply is already less than the demand.

The main reason behind the shortage of fertilizers is total absence of new fertilizer plants in the country during the tenth five year plan. The capacity of N (nitrogen –urea) rose marginally from 12.29 mt during 2002-03 to 12.34 mt, during 2005-06, an increase of a mere 50,000 tonnes or 0.4 %.The capacity of P2O5 increased from 5.45 mt to 5.5 mt 2005-06.No new plants were commissioned during the tenth plan except for a small addition to the capacity of the Namrup II unit of the Brahmaputra Valley Fertiliser Corporation after its revamp. The last urea plant to be commissioned was by the Chambal Fertiliser, Gadcepan II in October 1999. Duncan Industries, Kanpur and Fact Cochin II remained shut due to their financial problems and RCF's Trombay V remained shutdown for long period because of lack of gas. A few other plnats have closed down during the last few years.

The Magazine in its Seminar Paper of November 2006 had already warned of serious shortage e of fertilizers in the coming years, at least in the years of normal monsoon. This is what the country is facing now. For the last 12 years or so, noted the former Director General of the Fertiliser Association of India, Mr. B.K Saha, the drawing boards are lying empty as far as new fertilizer plants are concerned.

As is well known, the cost of production of fertilisers is very high but the Government of India subsidizes the fertilizer companies to enable farmers pay for the nutrients. But the Government of India, for various reasons, often delay the payment of subsidy to the fertilizer companies creating severe problems. For example, while the demand for subsidy in 2008-09 will be Rs.1,25,000 crores , the budget has provided for only Rs.30,986 crores. In the absence of a definite time by when Parliament will meet for the monsoon session, it is not possible to allot more funds for this purpose as supplementary demands have to be passed by Parliament. This will create more problems for the fertilizer section in the coming days.

Apart from the financial issues, the question of balanced use of different types of fertilizer is also an important one for raising farm production and productivity. Since urea is the cheapest of the subsidized fertilizers (Rs.4830 per tonne), several States use excess urea (i.e. nitrogen) compared to the other two major nutrients, phosphorous and potassium which are costlier. Surprisingly, farmers of Punjab used more urea than other nutrients in the mistaken belief that more urea would give more production. It is a misconception because more urea would make the leaves greener, but the production would not rise.

CIMMYT (Institute of improvement of wheat and maize production) Mexico has shown that modern crop varieties have high fertilizer conversion efficiency.

In 1981 variety (Genaro 8 ) attained a high efficiency level obtaining 70 kg of wheat for each kg of fertilizer input at an application of 75 kg of nitrogen fertilizer per hectare.(Measures for revising Indian agriculture) Fertiliser News, Seminar papers November –December 2006 (Prem S. Vashishta).

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