6 min readApr 13, 2026 06:21 AM IST First published on: Apr 13, 2026 at 06:13 AM ISTThe world heaved a sigh of relief as a two-week ceasefire was announced by US President Donald Trump, just hours before his deadline, and after the threat that “A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. One can only hope that there is a lasting solution to the deadly conflict between Iran and the US-Israel, and civilians are spared from death and destruction.What is the lesson for India from this conflict, as well as the one between Russia and Ukraine? The world is heading towards greater uncertainty and instability. Against this backdrop, the first and foremost task for the Indian government is to ensure food security for its people. But food security cannot be achieved unless India secures its fertiliser supplies. Natural farming, though desirable as a niche market, cannot feed India.AdvertisementIndia’s import dependence for chemical fertilisers (including their feedstocks) is to the tune of 70 per cent. Take the case of urea. India consumes roughly 40 million tonnes (MT) of urea, of which about 10MT is imported. But even what is produced at home is dependent on imported gas to the tune of almost 85 per cent. In the 40 days of the war, global urea prices were up by almost 65 per cent, from $482/tonne at the end of February to $795/tonne in the first week of April. Similarly, gas prices (Liquefied Natural Gas) went up from $12/MMBtu to $19.5/MMBtu over the same period, an increase of 63 per cent. This is the biggest hit to India, on top of not getting enough supplies from the Strait of Hormuz. Realising this, the Cabinet has already approved a higher subsidy on urea, indicating that the price of urea may not be increased for the farmers.Even prices of phosphatic fertilisers are increasing, although not to the same extent as urea and LNG. The price of DAP, for example, has gone up from $627/tonne to $720/tonne, an increase of about 15 per cent. But getting DAP or phosphate rock or phosphoric acid from the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, is becoming increasingly difficult.What should Indian policy-makers do? Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers J P Nadda is on record saying that we know a farmer needs two bags of urea for his crop, but is taking four bags. This clearly indicates that the government is aware that there is overuse of urea in relation to phosphatic and potassic fertilisers, and/or there is significant diversion of urea for non-agricultural uses or even to neighbouring countries. Given that urea in the country is being sold at less than $70/tonne to the farmers when global prices are touching almost $795/tonne, it leads to very inefficient use and opens up opportunities for large arbitrage in diversion. Why can’t the government say to each state that, given the difficulty in procuring gas and urea, and a major increase in their import prices, there will be a cut of 10 to 15 per cent in the supplies of urea for each state? And then ask the states to work out the modalities of how they want to allocate these restricted supplies to farmers based on their land records, crops grown, previous sales, and recommended doses by their state agriculture universities. This quantitative rationing of urea under the EssentialAdvertisementCommodities Act is very much possible and desirable to ensure better usage of nitrogenous fertilisers. This exercise needs to be undertaken jointly by the Centre and the states.It may be noted that granular urea, the way it is being applied in India, has a very low Nutrient Use Efficiency (NUE), roughly 35 to 40 per cent. The plant does not consume more than 40 per cent of the nitrogen being applied. The rest is going into the environment as nitrous oxide, which is 273 times the carbon dioxide, or leaching into groundwater and increasing its nitrate content that causes blue baby syndrome, thyroid or even diabetes. It is ironic that liquid urea (N) is not subsidised, whose NUE is almost 90 per cent through drip irrigation (fertigation). This speaks of a highly irrational urea pricing policy. The Prime Minister’s efforts to promote natural farming can not really scale up unless fertiliser pricing or quantities are rationalised.Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan says that they would like to do direct cash transfers to farmers equivalent to the fertiliser subsidy. But when will this happen? And how will they resolve the issue of tenants? The PM-KISAN scheme suffers from this lacuna, and the most vulnerable section of peasantry, the tenants, remains outside this scheme. How about clubbing the PM-KISAN funds and the fertiliser subsidy and directly giving it to farmers (land owners and tenants) on a per-acre basis, and freeing up prices of fertilisers? It can be done and would be most desirable. But it needs due preparation to identify real cultivators. The PM needs to put this issue on high priority as the gains would be very significant.you may likeDAP supplies are another issue. If India is already using urea (N) in excess in relation to P and K fertilisers, why put 18 per cent N even in DAP with 46 per cent P? Why not simply use Triple SuperPhosphate (TSP) with 46 per cent P? We have no plant in the country producing TSP, but we have more than 100 plants producing Single Super Phosphate (SSP) with only 16 per cent P. Why not incentivise the production of TSP at home or in collaboration with phosphatic-rich countries? The bottom line is that we need to increase the consumption of P in relation to N, and the best product for that would be TSP in place of DAP. It will also help the government to save at least 18 per cent N, and also cut down the subsidy bill on urea (N).The government needs to reform its fertiliser policies, either through the DBT route or by rationing quantities. Only then can it reduce its misuse and diversion, and ensure food security.Gulati is Distinguished Professor at ICRIER. Views are personal