3 min readApr 27, 2026 06:05 AM IST First published on: Apr 27, 2026 at 06:05 AM ISTCrops need water and nutrients for growth and sufficient grain yields. The signals on both fronts aren’t encouraging for the upcoming agricultural year. The India Meteorological Department has forecast a “below normal” southwest monsoon, with nationwide rainfall during June-September at 92 per cent of the long period average for the season. Even if the anticipated El Niño becomes a “strong” event only towards the end of the four-month season, its association with warmer-than-normal winters can also have an impact on the 2026-27 rabi crop, in addition to the one whose planting will start in a month’s time. But more than water – improved irrigation coverage has over the years made Indian agriculture relatively resilient against subnormal rains – it is plant nutrients that should be real cause for concern.The current supply shock in fertilisers is unprecedented. Prices of urea and di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) imported into India haven’t yet surged to the highs of late-2021 to mid-2022 (just before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) or even the 2008 global food crisis. But those were largely price shocks. The ongoing one, from the conflict in West Asia, is a supply shock that extends beyond finished fertilisers to key raw materials/intermediates such as natural gas, ammonia and sulphur too. The crisis today isn’t of prices alone, but of availability itself. The Strait of Hormuz’s effective closure has affected around one-third of the world’s seaborne fertiliser trade. With other major producers like Russia (which has a one-fifth share of the global trade) and China (India’s biggest urea and DAP supplier till 2023-24) also prioritising domestic availability and restricting exports, the shortages would only mount. India will feel the pressure, especially as it has hardly any gas, rock phosphate, potash or mineable sulphur reserves and is predominantly import dependent in plant nutrients.Advertisement2026-27 could well be a perfect storm for Indian agriculture, but also an opportunity for reforms where kicking the can down the road isn’t an option any longer. There are limits to subsiding products whose supply is itself in question. In the case of fertilisers, the focus must be on augmenting availability – including of alternative nutrient sources – rather than artificial underpricing that would only aggravate shortages. The government should muster the courage to deregulate retail prices of urea, DAP and all other fertilisers. Replace the existing product-wise subsidy regime with a flat per-acre payment of, say, Rs 5,000 for all cultivating farmers. The monies from both the fertiliser subsidy and PM-Kisan can be redirected and repurposed towards what can become a genuinely pro-farmer direct income support scheme.