India should address its high dependence on foreign fertilisers

India has the largest area under cultivation in the world. Its farming land constituted 169.3 million hectares (mh) in 2019. India uses more land for crop cultivation than the US (160.4 mh), China 135.7 mh), Russia (123.4 mh) or Brazil (63.5 mh). 

- Kishore Kumar Biswas

It has the highest rainfall in the world, nearly 1,200 mm a year. This has been 475 mm for Russia, 650 mm for China and 755 mm in the US. So, India has no inadequacy of land, water, and sunshine to maintain a developed agricultural sector. But these are not all. The country is plagued by a weak fertilizers policy and other institutional factors including improper political will to have a people oriented vibrant agricultural sector.

India has been an agricultural country. About 60% of the population depend directly on agriculture. It has achieved self-sufficiency in food production and many other agricultural products. Per-capita food availability has increased in the past decades as agriculture grew more than the growth rate of population. It also exports a lot of agricultural products. So, the importance of fertilizers and pesticides is very high in a country like India. This is why the fertilizer industry has been considered as a core sector in India's industrial base.

Due to several historical, physical, and institutional factors a new agricultural policy known as the Green Revolution was initiated. It was initiated in Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh. Later it was implemented more broadly. This policy was heavily dependent on the use of fertilizers and that trend has continued in the Indian agricultural sector.