Nano urea and some tall claims

Launching an ambitious programme for the promotion of liquid nano fertilisers at the two-day ‘Kisan Samman Sammelan’ at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) on October 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi exuded confidence that it would help attain self-sufficiency in the crucial sector and help farmers enhance their income while substantially reducing the impact on the environment.

Already, the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) — a major fertiliser manufacturer — is producing indigenously-developed nano urea at its Nano Biotechnology Research Centre (NBRC) in Kalol on a commercial scale. In addition, the central government has asked public sector undertakings (PSUs) such as National Fertilisers Limited (NFL) and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers Ltd (RCF) to make it using IFFCO’s proprietary technology.

In the non-urea fertiliser category too, there are plans to develop and produce nano stuff such as Nano-DAP (Diammonium phosphate), Nano-Zinc, Nano-Boron etc.

To make fertilisers affordable to farmers, the Centre controls the maximum retail price (MRP) of urea at a low level unrelated to the cost of production and distribution, which is higher. The excess of cost over MRP is reimbursed to the manufacturer as a subsidy, which varies from unit to unit depending on its cost. For non-urea fertilisers, it fixes ‘uniform’ subsidies on a per-nutrient basis for all manufacturers and importers.

Given India’s heavy dependence on import and increasing international prices of fertilisers as well as of raw materials used in their production and its compulsion to keep the MRP low, the government spends huge sums on fertiliser subsidy — the likely expenditure during the current financial year being about Rs 2,50,000 crore.

Can nano urea help in achieving the stated objective? Can it help to make a dent in the subsidy?

Nano urea is urea in the form of a nanoparticle containing nitrogen particles of 20–50 nanometre in size. It provides nitrogen to plants in liquid form as an alternative to conventional urea. A 500ml bottle of nano urea is equivalent to a 45kg bag of conventional urea.

The claim is: the efficiency of nano urea is over 80% against around 40% for conventional stuff. The nano increases yield by 3-16% besides increasing farmers’ income by Rs 2,400-Rs 5,700 per acre. Its use causes less soil, water and air pollution.

All these claims require careful scrutiny.

First, normally urea is applied in two dosages: one, basal application being even spreading of solid fertilisers over the entire field before or at sowing or planting; two, top dressing which involves applying fertiliser directly to the leaves as opposed to in the soil. Nano urea is meant to replace conventional urea only in top dressing even as basal application is entirely in solid form.

This means that the benefit of 80% efficiency (albeit of nano urea) will be available only on 50% of the total quantity of fertiliser applied. Hence, the achievable effective efficiency would be 60% (80x0.5 + 40x0.5). In other words, the efficiency gain with the use of nano urea would be only 20% instead of 40% as revealed by a plain reading of numbers.

Second, the government expects nano urea to deliver an increase of 3-16% in yield. What if the actual is 3%? Juxtapose it with an efficiency gain of a mere 20% and the farmer’s increase in income will be much lower than claimed.

Third, the cost of importing 45 kg of conventional urea is Rs 3,000 when compared to the MRP of Rs 242; the shortfall of Rs 2,758 is made up by subsidy. For nano urea, even as the farmer pays more or less the same, i.e. Rs 240 for a 500ml bottle, the producer doesn’t get any subsidy support. He won’t be selling at a loss, which means the cost of the bottle would be Rs 240 or even less.

The basic material for making nano urea is none other than conventional urea (it contains by weight 85 to 99.98% of conventional urea, 0.01 to 5% of quinhydrone, 0.01 to 10% of calcium cyanamide). Then, how come the cost of the former is a fraction of the latter’s cost?

To address the anomaly, look at this. A 45kg bag of conventional urea contains 46% ‘N’ or 20 kg (45x0.46), whereas a 500ml bottle of nano urea has 4% ‘N’ or 20 grams (500x.04). Yet, the two are equivalent. In other words, urea in nano form with a mere 20 grams can achieve what conventional urea does with 20 kilograms.

It is for agricultural scientists to authenticate whether nano urea can accomplish such a feat. If it can, the government could save a whopping Rs 55,000 crore in subsidy annually on 9 million tonnes of urea import [(2758x22.22x9); Rs 2,758 is subsidy per 45kg bag, 22.22 number of bags in a ton] that will be replaced by 198 million bottles of nano urea produced domestically — requiring no subsidy support.

(The writer is a policy
analyst)