The discussion forum has incited wonderful thoughts. Globally fertilisers are managed for making it available through domestic manufacture and / or import. Based on the general plan of national agriculture for each year (in the case of India for three distinct seasons, viz., rainy (kharif), irrigated / second crop (rabi) and summer seasons) in every country. The primary nutrient supply envisaged through fertilisers being nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, their quantities for the country depends on the use pattern for various cropping systems.
Fertiliser becomes a major input in India and neighbouring South Asian countries only for commercial agriculture of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, cotton, sugarcane and for horticulture crops such as tubers, bulbs, vegetables etc., plantation crops (rubber / coffee / tea / cardamom etc.) and a host of others. The total national nutrient requirement guides the annual fertiliser business.
The present alterations in the existing policy through regulations for production, import and supply of fertilisers based on nutrients has enabled securing cost to the country as well as to the Indian farmers. The fertiliser policy of every country in terms of use pattern, farmers’ economics, soil health as well as coming out of the olden ‘green revolution’ concepts of fertiliser use pattern for crop production. The future of securing better carbon foot print in crop production by nations is the call of the day. Heavy dependence on hydrocarbon relied fertiliser manufacture could bring in instability of agriculture once that hydrocarbon stream dries up globally.
The next instability issue is the damage to soil health. Soil health is the resultant of the microbial load and biological value of soil. The need for national policy to blend nutrients from the biological resources from within and outside farms is well recognised. Probably streaming such policy with intensive agriculture system of crop production within new approach to cropping system designs could bring major shift in excessive use of fertilisers. The olden concept of discriminatory fertiliser application based on soil and plant nutrient status of given seasons may brighten chances for higher judiciousness to invoke scientific principles of crop nutrition.
Lastly this forum may focus also on the immense impact on herbivory in crop fields due to excessive and imbalanced nutrient regimes in crops. The crop health in tandem with animal health of every farm reflects on the human health (as enunciated in the W.H.O’s - ONE HEALTH – ideology of yester-years). Immense pestilence due to keeping the crops highly nutritious to the herbivores cannot be the practice in intensive agriculture. The need for scientific perception for metabolic requirements of nutrients in every crop species is fortifying the demand for corrective fertiliser policy in every country along with supportive legislative measure including for fertiliser use in crops. Introducing agro-chemicals for mitigation of pestilence in crops became another vitiating practice in combination with excessive use of fertilisers.
Let me conclude by placing on record that this FORUM may recommend to the world for redefining GOOD AGRICULTURE PRACTICE ( other than that of WTO context) to refine farming practices in developing countries.
Dr TP Rajendran
former Asst DG (Plant Protection),ICAR &
former Officer on Special Duty:ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management, Raipur, Chhattisgargh
Dr. Rajendran TP