CHAPTER 6. FERTILIZER USE BY CROP

The total cropped area in Pakistan is about 22.2 million ha. The share of food grain crops is 54 percent, followed by cotton and sugar cane 20 percent; pulses 6 percent; oilseed crops 3 percent; fruit/vegetables 4 percent and other crops about 13 percent. Figure 9 shows that wheat is the main food crop. It occupies about 36.3 percent of the total cropped area, followed by cotton with 14 percent, paddy with 9.5 percent, sugar cane with 4.5 percent, maize with 4.5 percent and other crops with 20.8 percent.

According to the fertilizer use survey five major crops: wheat, cotton, sugar cane, rice and maize account for about 87 percent of fertilizer consumption. Wheat accounts for about 45 percent followed by cotton with a share of 23 percent. Sugar cane is the third crop; nutrient use per ha is highest on this crop. The share of fruit and vegetables is 5.6 percent (Figure 10).

The yields of the major crops (Table 5) are below their agronomic and genetic potential. There is a consensus among researchers, extensionists and policy planners that, given the necessary resources and inputs, yields could be increased by 30 to 40 percent.

Fertilizer use adoption at farm level

Less than two percent of the farmers apply potash whereas 92 percent apply nitrogen and 83 percent apply phosphate. Half of the farmers apply FYM. Almost five percent apply micronutrients. The use of green manures, crop residues and bio-fertilizers is negligible (Figure 11).

Almost all farmers having access to canal or tubewell irrigation water use fertilizers. In rainfed areas scarcely 50 percent of the farmers use fertilizers. About 92 percent of small-scale farmers (< 5 ha) use fertilizers. Application rates decrease with an increase in farm size (rainfed and irrigated). In rainfed areas the difference between application rates for small and large farms is very wide.

TABLE 5
Yields of major crops in Pakistan

Source: Agriculture Statistics Pakistan 2001-02.

Fertilizer application rates by crop

The crop-wise per ha use of fertilizer generally varies with the farm size, sources of irrigation, educational level, land tenure and cropping system. NFDC occasionally conducts farm level surveys to assess fertilizer use by crop and its impact on productivity. The other source of information is fertilizer deliveries in a specific administrative or ecological zone from which use per hectare can be calculated. To arrive at the figures of use by crop, all the information available through surveys and fertilizer deliveries has been used. The use on crops in each crop production zone is given in Table 6.

A comparison between fertilizer recommendations (Table 4) and actual use (Table 6) shows that the nitrogen application rate is close to 80 percent of the recommendations, compared with about 40 percent or less, depending on the crop, in the case of phosphate. Rates of nitrogen application approach recommended rates on irrigated wheat and cotton but are well below the recommended rates in the case of rainfed wheat. Scarcely two percent of the farmers apply potash, the small quantities used are applied mainly on sugar cane and vegetables and fruits. The N:P₂O₅:K₂O ratio during the past three years has averaged 1:0.28:0.01.

TABLE 6
Fertilizer use by crop in the CPRs