India has sufficient fertiliser stock for summer sowing, says Mandaviya

NEW DELHI: India has sufficient fertiliser stocks to meet demand from millions of farmers ahead of the crucial summer cropping season, chemicals and fertilisers minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Monday. The government has secured long-term contracts to avoid scarcity caused by global disruptions, he said.

India depends on imports to meet domestic demand of crop nutrients. Demand for fertilisers is expected to be high this year due to the forecast of a robust monsoon, which waters 60% of the country’s cultivated area.

Global fertiliser prices have broken new records as availability has been hit by the Ukraine war and supply-chain disruptions.

The government has worked around hurdles and made good a shortfall arising from the Ukraine crisis by securing supplies enough to last till December, Mandaviya said, adding that

India would not need to import urea until the end of the year.

Last year, a shortage of some key fertilisers had angered farmers and hit acreage of some crops, as global supplies continued to remain tight. Higher demand has caused prices for raw materials used to make crop nutrients, such as ammonia, nitrogen, potash, urea, phosphates, sulphates and nitrates, to rise 30% since the start of the year, according to the International Fertilizer Association, a lobby group. “Our stock issue has been resolved. We have sufficient stocks till December and India will not need to import any more urea till December,” Mandaviya said in a media briefing.

The country has contracted to import 1.6 million tonne of urea from countries such as Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Algeria, according to calculations of the fertilizer ministry.

India’s local production of urea currently stands at 2.5 million tonne a month, while states have a stockpile of nearly 7 million tonne, the minister said, adding that output of 50,000 bags of nano urea of 50kg each will cut down the demand for it by 2 million tonne over the next six months.

“While there is an immediate concern about the impact of high food prices on food security, especially in low- and middle-income countries, fertiliser price spikes and concerns about availability cast a shadow on future harvests, and thus risk keeping food prices high for a longer period,” according to the latest World Bank update.

India also had adequate arrangements to meet demand for DAP, another key crop nutrient, through a combination of domestic production and imports, Mandaviya said.

INDIA WOULD NOT NEED TO IMPORT UREA UNTIL THE END OF THE YEAR, MANDAVIYA SAID