Small wonder?

The government believes that nano-fertiliser can improve soil health and help double agricultural income, but farmers and scientists remain unsure about its benefits

- VIVEK MISHRA

CALL IT a desperate attempt to reduce the soaring import bills since Russia’s war on Ukraine or to achieve self-reliance in fertiliser production and at the same time reduce environmental pollution and farm input costs, India has become the first country to have developed and roll out nano-fertilisers. Since 2021, it has launched nano-variants of two fertilisers widely used in the country—urea and di-ammonia phosphate (DAP). The Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), which has developed the variants using a proprietary technology, claims that nano-urea and nano-DAP have several advantages over their conventional granular counterparts. The government is promoting the products, saying they can boost soil health as well as farmers’ income. Farmers, however, are not convinced.

Both nano-urea and nano-DAP come in liquid forms. IFFCO claims that a 500-mililitre bottle of nano-urea can replace at least a 45-kg bag of granular urea and a bottle of 500 ml nano-dap can replace a 50 kg bag of granular DAP. While nano-urea has been made available to farmers since late 2021, nano-dap was launched in April 2023. While launching nano-DAP, Union home minister Amit Shah said that as of March 2023, the country manufactured 63 million bottles of nano-urea. As a result, import of urea reduced by 0.7 million tonnes in 2021-22. The goal is now to reduce the usage of granular dap by 9 million tonnes through nano-DAP.