Fertiliser - IIFCO Report

8/6/2019 Fertiliser - IIFCO Report

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Paradigm shift in Fertilizer Sector in India

G.C.SHROTRIYAChief Manager (Agri. Services)

IFFCO, New Delhi

ABSTRACT

Fertilizer production and consumption in India has increased manifold during thepast five decades. Country has become almost self -sufficient in nitrogenous andphosphatic fertilizers . Imports of urea and DAP have declined to almost negligiblequantities. The entire potassic requirement is met through imports as there are no naturaldeposits of potash in India . Due to sufficient indigenous capacity of nitrogen fertilizer, ithas been decided that no new capacity in urea production will be for the next three years,however, possibilities of joint ventures abroad is being explored in countries where rawmaterial and energy is available at low cost, for all fertilizers. Feed stock option in the

country is also under review as natural gas position is not comparable and recentexpansion projects have dual arrangements for both, natural gas and naphtha. Apossibility of importing LNG and making it available for existing and future urea plant isalso under considerations. Subsidy burden on fertilizer has expanded to unbearable limits.Even after decontrol of P&K fertilizers the amount of subsidy and concessions areswelling. Government is considering complete decontrol of fertilizer sector by 2005-2006.Urea, DAP, SSP and MOP are the most commonly used fertilizers. Use of complexfertilizers is also growing. There is vast distribution net work of fertilizer distribution wellspread through out the country, however, NE region and states of Bihar, Orissa, M.P,Rajasthan need further intensification of distribution. Innovations and introduction ofmodified or new fertilizer material is also required to meet the specific needs and forimproving fertilizer use efficiency. Promotion of fertilizer use will require emphasis onpopularizing use in low consumption areas and fruit and vegetables crops, balanced and

efficient fertilizer use, integrated nutrient management, micro nutrient application, soiltesting and extension services including information technology

Introduction

Fertilizer is key input in enhancing crop production. Fertilizer consumption andfood grain production is closely correlated (Table 1). Presently fertilizer contributes about50% to the total increase in food grain production. Increasing pressure of population andshrinking land resources demand for vertical expansion of agriculture where the role offertilizers will further increase. At the present level of nutrition, additional 150 million tonsof food grain production has to be achieved to feed almost 1.5 billion people by 2040. Thisestimate does not include demand for animal feed, which will rise due to depletinggrasslands. Thus, the crusade of higher production of food grain has to continue withincreased vigour using fertilizers along with the other sources of plant nutrients.


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Table -1. All India Fertilizer Consumption and Food grain Production (Million tons)

Year Fertilizer Consumption (N+P205+K20) Food grain Production

1951-52 0.05 51.99

1961-62 0.34 82.711971-72 2.66 105.17

1981-82 6.07 133.30

1991-92 12.73 168.37

2000-2001 16.63 196.07

Production of Fertilizers

India has become third largest country with a total capacity of 11.757 million tonsof N and 5.056 million tons of P2O5 in year 2000-2001. Domestic production ofnitrogenous fertilizers was 10.942 million tons in 2000-2001, whereas production of

phosphatic fertilizers was 3.734million tons (Table 2), which are marginally high,compared to last years production. All India capacity utilization has gradually improvedover the years and was maintained at almost cent per cent level. However, during 2000-01 restrictions were imposed on capacity utilization for Urea at 92% as a consequencethe production of urea declined. The increase in production of total N is observed due toincrease in production of DAP and other complexes which also have 'N'. Production ofDAP during 2000-01 was 10 % higher compared to previous year (Table 3).

Table - 2. Capacity and Production of N and P Fertilizers in India (000 tons)Capacity ProductionYear

N P N P

1995-96 8,998 2,924 8,768 2,5931996-97 9,332 2,948 8,593 2,578

1997-98 9,987 3,165 10,083 3,058

1998-99 10,571 3,206 10,477 3,181

1999-2000 11,078 3,932 10,873 3,447

2000-2001 11,757 5,016 10,942 3,734

Table 3. Production of Urea and DAP in India (000 tons)

Year Urea DAP

1995-96 15,805 2,6451996-97 15,628 2,765

1997-98 18,594 3,6651998-99 19,292 3,8641999-2000 19,807 3,8612000-2001 19,623 4,881

Imports of Fertilizers


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The gap between demand and domestic supply is met through imports. Importsof urea have declined substantially during the past five years (Table 4). There has beenvirtually no imports of urea during 2000-01.except some quantity for captive consumption.India is presently self sufficient in respect of urea and DAP. The entire quantity of potashis imported, mostly as MOP.

Table 4. Imports of Fertilizers: 1995-96 - 1999-2000 (000 tons)

Year Urea DAP MOP

1995-96 3,782 1,475 2,356

1996-97 2,328 475 110

1997-98 2,389 1,536 2,380

1998-99 556 2,091 2,579

1999-2000 533 3,268 2,946

2000-2001 65 861 2,577

Growth in Fertilizer Industry

Fertilizer production is capital intensive and presently the cost of production ofindigenous material is high and returns on investment are low. The Indian fertilizerindustry, which achieved phenomenal growth in eighties, witnessed decline in the growthrate during the nineties. In the recent past, the fertilizer industry has not attracted anysignificant investment. Due to sufficient indigenous capacity and low international pricesof urea the Government of India in Feb. 2000 decided that no new grassroots projects willbe allowed during the next three years. Even if the Government reviews its decision, theearliest a project could start would be by 2004-05. Lack of availability of natural gas in thecountry has prompted investors to collaborate for joint ventures abroad for ureaproduction. Gulf countries, due to abundant availability of gas, nearness to Indian shoresand investment friendly environment, are becoming the first choice for joint ventures.Government is keen on implementation of Indo-Oman Fertilizer Project. The financialclosure is expected by October 2001 and the commercial production will begin 36 months

after that. India will purchase the entire production of 1.65 million tons per annum of urea,from this project on long term basis.

As India does not have significant high-grade rock phosphate reserve, it is mainlydependent on import of either rock phosphate or phos acid or DAP. Most of the capacityof DAP is based on imported phos acid and ammonia. There has been some newcapacity addition for NP/NPK complexes by way of importing rock phosphate andconverting it to phos acid and then to DAP/NPK or production of phos acid at rockphosphate mines abroad in JV and importing phosphoric acid for further conversion toDAP/NPK. Apart from the existing joint venture plants for phosphoric acid in Senegal,Jordan and Morocco, some more JV projects are under negotiation.

Feed Stock Option

Natural gas is the most efficient and economical feed stock for urea. Most ureaplants are based on natural gas as feedstock followed by naphtha. Shortage of naturalgas is compelling even the existing gas based fertilizer plants to shift towards the use ofnaphtha thereby increasing the cost of production. The expansion projects implementedrecently have dual feed arrangements, both for natural gas and naphtha. Presently about49 per cent of the total existing urea capacity is through natural gas while naphtha andfuel oil account for 30 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. Thus, 89 per cent of the totalurea capacity is based on hydrocarbon feed stocks and the remaining 11 per cent onothers. LNG is also being considered as feed stock for the existing and future urea plants.


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In the background paper on long term policy in fertilizer sector it is recommended thatnaphtha and fuel oil based plants should switch over to LNG during next five years. LNGis likely to be imported in India from Iran through pipeline via Pakistan.

Fertilizer Consumption

Fertilizer nutrients (N+P2O5+K2O) consumption in India, in the past 50 years,has increased manifold and reached a record level of 18.128 million tons during 2000-2001. However, the consumption of all the three nutrients declined during 2000 _2001and total consumption dropped to 16.631 million tons (Table 5).

Urea and DAP are the most popular fertilizers, accounting for 53 and 18 per centrespectively, of the total fertilizer material consumed in the country. NPK grades whichcan help in promoting balanced fertilization, constitute less than 7 per cent of the totalfertilizer materials (Table 6). Fertilizer use in India is mainly limited to Urea, DAP, MOPand SSP. Elsewhere in the world the specialty products such as completely soluble solidfertilizers for drip irrigation and efficient products like USG, Coated urea etc. are used.New research and development activities are required to be encouraged in the areas ofnew product, energy saving, alternate feedstock etc. Without R & D efforts Indianfertilizer industry will continue to employ stereo type operations and there will be little

innovation.

Table- 5. All India Consumption of Plant Nutrients (Million tons)

YEAR N P2O5 K2O TOTAL

1950-51 0.055 0.008 0.006 0.069

1960-61 0.210 0.053 0.029 0.292

1970-71 1.487 0.462 0.228 2.177

1980-81 3.678 1.213 0.623 5.515

1990-91 7.799 3.221 1.328 12.546

2000-2001 10.861 4.212 1.557 16.631

.

Consumption of fertilizer nutrients per hectare of gross cropped area in India isaround 87 kg/ha (Table7), which is low almost 1/4 - 1/3 to of Netherlands, Korea, Japanand Belgium. Even, Within the country, there is large variation in fertilizer use amongstdifferent States (Table 9). Fertilizer consumption is higher than 500 kg/ha in the states ofDelhi and Pondicherry and lower than 10 kg/ha in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland andSikkim.

Table- 6. Consumption of Fertilizer Material in India (000 tons)


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FERTILIZER QUANTITY PER CENT

UREA 20342 52.67

AS 638 1.65

ACl 76 0.19

CAN 347 0.89

SSP 3535 9.15

MOP 2086 5.40

SOP 17 0.04

DAP 6935 17.95

ROCK 121 0.31

10-26-26 532 1.37

12-32-16 499 1.29

14-28-14 11 0.03

14-35-14 185 0.47

15-15-15 342 0.88

16-20 220 0.56

7-17-17 682 1.76

19-19-19 126 0.32

20-20 1535 3.97

23-23 222 0.57

28-28 173 0.44

TOTAL 38624 100

(Provisional 1999 2000)

Table 7. All India Consumption of Plant Nutrients per unit ofGross Cropped Area (kg/ha)


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YEAR N P2O5 K2O Total

1951-52 0.44 0.05 0.06 0.55

1961-62 1.60 0.39 0.18 2.17

1971-72 10.88 3.38 1.82 16.08

1981-82 23.02 7.48 3.83 34.33

1991-92 44.15 18.22 7.47 69.84

2000-01 56.9 22.1 8.2 87.2

Table - 8. All India Plant Nutrient Consumption RatioYEAR N P2O5 K2O1951-52 7.9 0.9 1

1961-62 8.9 2.2 11971-72 6.0 1.9 11981-82 6.0 1.9 11991-92 6.0 2.9 12000-2001 7.0 2.7 1

The ideal N:P:K ratio, aggregated for the country as a whole, is 4:2:1. However,during 1992-93, after decontrol of phosphatic and potassic fertilizers, the NPKconsumption ratio distorted to 9.5:3.2:1.the ratio continues to be quite wide at 7.0:2.7:1 in2001 (Table 8), N/ K2O ratio is widest in the State of Haryana and narrowest in the Stateof Kerala (Table 9). Such imbalance application of fertilizer is bound to affect the crop

productivity and soil fertility in the long run. The crop response to fertilizer use which wasestimated at 12 kg foodgrain per kg of nutrient use is now restricted to 8 kg foodgrain perkg of nutrients. The crop response is likely to go down further to six kg per kg of nutrientuse. The losses of nutrients occur through leaching, volatilization, run off, fixation etc.The losses have to be arrested by adopting best method of agriculture packages orprecision farming.

Besides imbalance use of NPK, deficiencies of other secondary andmicronutrients are also becoming apparent now. The concept of balance fertilizerapplication therefore has to consider these elements, particularly sulphur, zinc and iron.Low organic matter content in Indian soils and lack of adequate sources for micro-nutrients make it imperative to increase use of organic sources like FYM, green manure,bio-gas slurry etc. There is a need to practice Integrated Plant Nutrient Supply System(IPNS) to bring back the balance in soil fertility and fertilizer use.

Table 9. Consumption of N+P2O5+K2O per unit of gross cropped area and Use ratio in

India (1999 -2000)

State N + P2O5+ K2O

consumption ( kg/ha)

N:P2O5:K2O

consumption ratio


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Arunachal Pradesh 2.54 3.4 : 1.4 : 1

Assam 27.66 2.7 : 1.3 : 1

Bihar 97.19 11.1 : 3.3 : 1

Manipur 91.99 12.3 : 2.1 : 1

Meghalaya 16.27 15.3 : 9.0 : 1

Mizoram 20.55 1.3 : 1.6 : 1

Nagaland 3.55 13.0 : 9.5 : 1Orissa 43.83 4.5 : 1.4 : 1

Sikkim 6.19 6.2 : 4.3 : 1

Tripura 19.45 7.5 : 2.0 : 1

West Bengal 135.97 2.7 : 1.5 : 1

Haryana 148.47 128.3: 43.5: 1

Himachal Pradesh 39.43 6.9 : 1.4 : 1

Jammu & Kashmir 58.24 44.3 : 14.7 : 1

Punjab 184.57 40.9 : 12.6 : 1

Uttar Pradesh 125.38 21.0 : 6.8 : 1

Delhi 416.96 56.4 : 14.8 : 1

Andhra Pradesh 157.99 6.5 : 3.0 : 1

Karnataka 103.11 3.1 : 1.7 : 1Kerala 69.99 1.1 : 0.5 : 1

TamilNadu 162.91 2.1 : 0.8 : 1

Pondicherry 529.98 2.4 : 1.1 : 1

Gujarat 87.77 9.1 : 3.8 : 1

Madhya Pradesh 47.19 10.4 : 6.6 : 1

Maharashtra 88.87 4.9 : 2.4 : 1

Rajasthan 39.50 87.9 : 38.5: 1

Goa 44.11 1.9 : 0.9 : 1

Fertilizer use in Horticultural Crops

Horticultural crops have tremendous potential for fertilizer use. However,application of fertilizers to plantation, fruits and vegetable crops, though not uncommon,has been accounted. Based on recommended doses of fertilizer for different fruit crops,requirement of 826 thousand tons of N, 570 thousand tons of P205 and 115 thousandtons of K20 for the year 2000 has been projected. Similarly, 744 thousands tons N, 372thousand tons of P205 and 272 thousand tons of K20 for vegetable crops has also beenprojected. Thus, fruits and vegetable together have a potential requirement of 2.90million tons of major nutrients. Horticultural crops are heavy feeders of plant nutrients anda number of crops may absorb 500-1000 kg of N + P 205+K20/ha/year or even more under

good management conditions. Nutrient uptake by many fruits and vegetable crops isequal to or high than that of cereal crops (Table 10). To replenish the removal and tosupply sufficient amount of nutrients at each stage of crop growth, adequate rates areneeded in the fertilizer application programme of horticultural crops.

Fertilizer applications to many horticultural crops have been arbitrary and oftenerratic. Many fruit crops, like Mango and Guava hardly receive any fertilizer. W hereas, asurvey of Vineyard in Maharashtra and Karnataka has indicated excessive use amountingto 3000 kg of nutrient/ha which has led to loss of quality, pollution of ground water anddevelopment of salinity in poorly drained soils. In view of the growing importance ofhorticultural crops both for home consumption and export, the question of adequatefertilizer management is of special significance.


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Table 10. Nutrient Removal by some Fruits and Vegetable Crops (kg/ha).---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Crop Yield (t/ha) N P205 K20---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apple 25 100 45 180Banana 40 250 60 1000Citrus 30 100 60 350Grape 20 170 60 220Mango 15 100 25 110Papaya 50 90 25 130Pineapple 50 185 55 350Cabbage 70 370 85 480Carrot 30 125 55 200Cauliflower 50 250 100 350Cucumber 40 70 50 120Egg Plant 60 175 40 300Okra(bhindi) 20 60 25 90Onion & Garlic 35 120 50 160Spinach 25 120 45 200Tomato 50 140 65 190

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Secondary and Micro nutrients

The entire scenario of fertilizer is presently limited to the three primary nutrients N , P a n d K. Deficiency of secondary and micronutrients is also not uncommon,particularly that of secondary nutrient sulphur and micro nutrient zinc. Such deficienciesare primarily occurring in the intensively cultivated areas. Meager information is available

on supply and consumption of secondary and micro nutrient fertilizers. Micronutrient

demand for future has been calculated using sufficiency and maintenance approach. Thesufficiency approach has merit as it takes into account the nutrient demand of the soil,optimum fertilizer recommendation for maximum crop response and residual effect.Estimates based on sufficiency approach showed that the requirement, calculated on thebasis that only 25% area requires micro-nutrient application, will be for Zn 324, Fe 33, Cu3, and Mn 6 thousand tons by the year 2025. Currently statistics is not available about theactual amount of secondary and micronutrients being used by various states, thoughseveral states are using various amounts of solid or liquid micro nutrient products. Effortsare needed to collect reliable data about secondary and micro nutrient production anduse.

Table 11. No. Of Fertilizer sales points and their spread

States No. fertilizerSale points

No. village No. holdings(000)

Area(000HA)

Assam 5;665 28,590 2523 3205000Bihar 15,863 77,697 12966 10743


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Manipur 514 2,212 142 175Meghalaya 416 5629 171 302Nagaland 38 1225 142 968Orissa 16891 51057 3948 5298Sikkim 134 453 52 111

Tripura 389 856 318 308W.B 35,329 40867 6284 5656Arunachal 270 3649 - -Mizoram 57 787 - -Haryana 7191 6988 1530 3711H.P 2908 19388 834 1010J&K 2000 - 1217 1014Punjab 8752 12795 1117 4033U.P 71334 123,950 20074 17986Delhi 219 - - -A.P. 17933 28002 9296 14460

Karnataka 11524 29193 5776 12321Kerala 3285 1384 4181 1805T.N. 17443 16780 7999 7474Pondicherry 176 - - -Gujarat 11027 18509 3517 10292M.P. 12841 76220 8401 22111Maharashtra 27571 43025 9470 20925Rajasthan 10214 39810 5107 20971Goa 332 369 - -All India 280,397 627,614 106,637 165,507

The installed production capacity of Zinc Sulphate, the most in demand straightmicro nutrient fertilizer, is about two-lac tons/annum. However, production of zinc sulphateis 30-40% of the installed capacity. The demand as assessed is still to be realised at fieldlevel.

Fertilizer Distribution Channel

Fertilizers are produced or imported at about 200 locations in the country anddistributed among the farmers scattered through the length and breadth of the country inabout 6,27,000 villages through a net work comprising of private and institutionalchannels. Some quantities are also made available through the manufacturers ownoutlets. Private trade accounts for about 70% of the total fertilizers distributed in the

country, followed by institutional agencies at 30%, and marginal quantities are distributedthrough manufacturers own outlets. Among the institutional agencies, cooperativeshappen to be the main distribution agencies. The total number of fertilizer sale points inIndia is more than 2,80,000 out of which about 72,580(26%) are institutional agenciessale points (mainly cooperatives and remaining 2,07,818 (74%) are controlled by theprivate trade. On an average one-fertilizer sale point covers more than two villages.States of Kerala, Tamilnadu and Haryana have more number of sales point compared tonumber of villages. NE states, Bihar, Orissa, H.P., M.P., Rajasthan have very thin spread


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of sale points and on an average one sale point covers more than three villages.Distribution network in these states require intensification.

Subsidy on Fertilizers

Subsidy on fertilizers was introduced with the intention that Indian farmers will getfertilizers at affordable and uniform price. However, increasing use of fertilizers increasedthe subsidy burden on the government exchequer to the unbearable extend. In August1992 subsidy on phosphatic and potassic fertilizers was withdrawn. As a consequence ofthis, price of phosphatic fertilizers almost doubled and that of potassic fertilizers trebled,consumption of these fertilizers went down and ratio of N:P:K consumption got distorted.Government of India introduced some concession to restore the balance fertilizerapplication. Subsidy and concession amounts provided by Government of India is given atTable 12.The union budget for 2000-01 raised urea prices by 15 percent, DAP by 7percent and that of MOP by 15 percent. This move enabled the Government of India(GOI) to prune the subsidy bill to some extent. However, there was no increase infertilizer price in the union budget for 2001-02. In the long-term policy, the subsidywithdrawal in a phased manner has been proposed. However, modalities to phase outthe subsidy have not been clearly mentioned.

Table 12. Subsidy + Concessions on fertilizersYEAR Rs. In million1976-77 6001981-82 3,7501986-87 18,9711991-92 47,9961996-97 59,060+16,7202000-01 85,580+40,930

With the withdrawal of subsidy and concessions the prices of fertilizers willincrease. In the totally decontrolled scenario, the stability and uniformity of fertilizer pricesis not likely to be achieved. Indian farmers who were getting fertilizers almost at the

uniform price throughout the country may not continue to avail this opportunity. Theymay also witness fluctuating market price of a fertilizer within a short span of one cropseason. Such price variation may affect farmers purchase decision as well.

Innovative Approaches in Increasing Nutrient Use Efficiency

The low efficiency of fertilizer use in India is a matter of concern. Nitrogen useefficiency in rice crop is only 30-35 percent, with an overall efficiency level at 50 percent.Phosphatic fertilizers are the costliest on Rs./kg of nutrient basis but their use efficiency is20-25 percent only. Efficiency of potash is around 70-80 percent. Efficient utilization offertilizer, therefore, is key to economics of fertilizer application and environment friendlysustainable agriculture. Adoption of the best time, method and dose of fertilizerapplication by the farmers is essential to achieve higher efficiency of fertilizer use. Soil

testing to determine the fertilizer need, suitable fertilizer drills for placement of fertilizers,promotion of slow release materials, IPNS and other improved agronomic practices willcertainly help in increasing efficiency of applied fertilizers. Use of coated urea, USG,precision farming using GIS for decision support system in efficient use of fertilizer willbecome necessary to enhance the Fertilizer Use Efficiency.

W. T. O. Implications

Quantitative restrictions on import of fertilizers have been removed since April 1,2001. The proposal to institute a tariff rate quota (TRQ) for urea imports has been put on


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hold for the time being, retaining the basic custom duty of five per cent for the year 2001-02. Under the TRQ regime, it is proposed to allow imports of a specific quantity at theexisting rate of five per cent custom duty and quantities beyond at higher custom duty.

At present, there is no bound rate of duty on urea and Government can imposehigher tariff say 150-200 per cent in future. But pegging the duty at such levels may notbe appropriate because imports of urea thus will become costly to meet the demand-supply gap that is likely to increase in future. The TRQ option will therefore, provide theflexibility in importing a certain critical quantity at a lower duty. At present, urea importswould be undertaken through designated state trading enterprises (MMTC, STC and IPL)on the commercial considerations in accordance with Article XVII of GATT. In otherwords they can import any quantity without any restriction. There will be a bound rate of 5per cent custom duty on import of DAP and MOP. The W.T.O related issues are underdetailed examination by the Government.

Fertilizer Promotion

Besides making fertilizers available to the farmers, which have vital role inincreasing crop production, Fertilizer Industry took upon the responsibility of undertakingsystematic promotional and educational programmes. Governments, State Agricultural

Universities and other voluntary institutions have also performed key role in fertilizerpromotion. Fertilizer promotion programmes lay emphasis an efficient and balanced useof fertilizer application. Farmers Meetings, Crop Seminars, Field Days, Farmers Training/Visits, Farmers Camps, Crop Demonstration/ LSBD / CIP/ Trials, Campaigns (Soil test,Seed treatment, Plant protection, Fumigation etc.) are some of the activities carried out toeducate farmers about fertilizer use and crop production technology. Instead of scatteredefforts of fertilizer promotion, area development approach is much meaningful inachieving the objectives. Area Development Programmes are undertaken for the benefitof farmers to increase their crop yields through better management of available resourcesunder situations like dryland, problematic soils, tribal areas etc. Lack of awareness amongthe farmers, limited financial resources and non-availability of timely and adequate supplyof inputs including credit are some of the major constraints identified for adoption ofimproved technologies. A well-focused programme dealing with location specific

problems and their solutions have given quick results. Spectacular rise in fertilizerconsumption has achieved in a short span of 3-4 years, through concerted andcollaborated efforts in the selected areas. Emphasis has been laid on area specificproblem oriented promotional programmes along with service support. Soil testing, IPNS,wasteland development, watershed management, high-tech agriculture, dealers network,use of information technology, credit card facility etc. have been suggested for reorientingpromotional strategy.

Fertilizer industry has always believed in the promotion of nutrient applicationbased on soil test. It has also created facilities of analyzing soil samples through static aswell as Mobile Soil Testing Laboratories. There are 68 soil testing laboratories (34 STLand 34 Mobile) being run by various fertilizer companies. These laboratories havecapacity to analyze about six Lac samples per annum. The major industry members have

34 static and 17 mobile laboratories with an annual capacity of testing more than five Lacsamples and utilization of about 73% capacity (Table-13).

In all there are 519 soil testing laboratories in India with a capacity of about 6.5million samples per annum. In order to provide soil testing facilities to all 106 million farmholdings in a reasonable period of time, the existing analyzing capacity of the soil testingprogramme needs to be augmented almost 15-20 times. This would require tremendousamount of resources and involvement of all agencies whose basic aim is to see thatagriculture development in the country is further accelerated to achieve ever-increasingneed for more and more foodgrains as well as other commercial crops. The efforts of the


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State Governments will have to be supplemented by the programmes of Corporate sectorin the agriculture input business.

Farmers Service Centers (Fascias) are developed to supplement the concept ofSingle Window System where all agricultural inputs including farm guidance and soil testfacilities are available under one roof. Many of the industry members have establishedthe farmers service centres. PSUs/Cooperative units have almost 620 FSCs Spread over17 states of the country. Prominent among them are IFFCO -168, KRIBHCO -60, GSFC -181, GNFC -64, RCF -34, NFL - 5 and FACT - 108.

Table 13. Fertilizer Industry-wise Progress Report on working of Soil TestingLaboratories for the year 1997-98.

S.No Fertilizer Industry No. ofstatic

Labsmobile

Total AnnualCapacity

% Utilization

1 HFC 10 6 16 12,000 6.62

2 IFFCO 2 2 4 55,000 109.92

3 GSFC 1 2 3 30,000 116.42

4 RCF 5 5 10 33,900 83.02

5 SPIC 1 1 2 21,000 111.12

6 MFL 1 - 1 25,000 65.94

7 PPCL. 1 - 1 1,500 47.73

8 CFL. 1 - 1 2,000 62.4

9 FACT 2 1 3 46,000 71.48

10 Zauri . 2 - 2 60,000 118.03

11 IGFCL 1 - 1 16,000 101.08

12 GNVFC 1 - 1 14,000 89.42

13 Deepak 1 - 1 9,000 107.86

14 KRIBHCO - 6 6 36,000 59.6

15 NFCL 1 - 1 12,000 109.55

16 Duncan 1 - 1 3,000 64.6

17 Rallis 3 - 3 16,500 99.17Total 34 17 51 500,900 73.43

Information Technology

India has contributed significantly in the field of information technology (IT) and hascreated a unique position in international arena. The spread of IT to rural India hasopened new vistas in technology transfer areas. Not only large volume of information canbe made available through these media but interactive interface can also be providedbetween the farmers and an expert sitting at distant place. This will help in increasingreach of expert in distant and otherwise inaccessible areas. Use of geographicalinformation system for supporting farmers in decision making for management of natural

resources and improvement in crop productivity can be very cost effective as well. ITprovides opportunity for blending advantages of inter personnel and mass communicationin to one media through interactive mode and wider reach. Thus e-extension will be acommon system of promotional programmes. Several members of fertiliser industry havecreated their web sites and also launching agricultural information portals. However,these have to be further enriched with content, farmer friendly touch screen technologyetc.

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