Potassium or potash (K) is the third primary nutrient other than nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P). It plays an important role in yield and quality of crops. It helps in development of roots and stems and increase in use efficiency of water and nutrients. It provides plants resistance from disease and stress including draught, high temperature and salinity.
Thus, application of potash assumes more significance in face of climate change. On the quality front, potash increases sugar, starch and protein content of the crops.
Potash is applied through products like Muriate of Potash (MOP), Sulphate of Potash (SOP) or complexes. Potash remains the neglected nutrient which is reflected in its consumption pattern. Consumption of nitrogen grew from 15.6 million tonnes in 2009-10 to 20.5 million tonnes in 2023-24, a growth of 31 per cent.
Consumption of potash declined 48 per cent from 3.6 to 1.9 million tonnes during the same period. Data for average consumption of nutrients per hectare of gross cropped area show that potash consumption almost halved from 17.7 to 8.6 kg/ha during the period.
In early 1990s, retail price of an MOP bag used to be much lower than a bag of urea. Decontrol of P (phosphorus) and K (potassium or potash) fertilizers in 1992 distorted this ratio substantially. Controls were restored but subsidy on these products was fixed on an adhoc basis. Ad hoc concessions were much lower than in earlier subsidy regime. This made P and K fertilizers more expensive for farmers.
NBS scheme
Nutrient based subsidy (NBS) scheme introduced in April 2010 rationalised the subsidy and hence retail prices of different fertilizer products based on their content of nitrogen, phosphorous, potash and sulphur. Under the scheme there is a fixed subsidy on each nutrient and retail prices were decontrolled. The fixed subsidy is announced twice a year for each crop season. But urea accounting for 80 per cent of nitrogen consumption and about 55 per cent of total fertilizer application continues to be out of the NBS scheme. Its controlled retail price remains almost frozen since 2009-10. It was hoped that introduction of NBS in 2010 will correct the inter-product price distortion, but exclusion of urea defeated its purpose. The fixed subsidy on N, P and K under NBS went through several revisions.
Over a period of 15 years, urea subsidy increased by almost 100 per cent, but under NBS subsidy on phosphate (phosphorus) has gone up by only 20 per cent and subsidy on K (potash) has been reduced drastically by nearly 90 per cent.
Specifically, subsidy per tonne of MOP was ₹14,692 in 2009-10 which was reduced to only ₹1,427 per tonne for last two years. With the result, price of a bag of MOP is nearly six times than that of urea. This policy approach has distorted use ratio of primary nutrients in favour of nitrogen through excess use of cheap urea. The balanced use of N, P and K, achieved after efforts of decades, was disturbed. Average N:K use ratio should be about 4:1 but it is 11:1 for India.
The ratio is even more distorted in northern States — 44:1 in Punjab and Haryana and 28:1 in Uttar Pradesh. Thus, this important nutrient is completely neglected. Many major States have medium to high level of potash deficiency in soils. It is affecting crop yields.
Crop yields
China’s average consumption was of 70 kg of K (potash) in 2022 compared with India’s consumption of 10 kg/ha. The average yield of cereal crops was 6,380 kg/ha in China. Even in Bangladesh, with K consumption of 47kg/ha, average yield of cereals was 5,000 kg/ha. Compared to this, India had low yield of 3,567 kg/ha during this the same period. Productivity of pulses is even worse where it is less than half compared to China and Bangladesh. Such a distorted use of plant nutrients is hurting Indian agriculture and farmers.
Subsidy for potash under NBS should be restored to a level so that retail price of a bag of MOP is much lower than that of DAP and close to that of urea to encourage farmers to increase its consumption for balanced fertilization. This will also increase crop resistance to unusual spikes in temperatures.
Finally, bringing urea under NBS can make retail prices of nitrogen, phosphorous and potash product neutral. It is important that pricing and subsidy policy encourages farmers to use N, P and K in right ratio in order to restore soil health, maximise crop yields and improve profitability of farmers.
The writer is Visiting Professor at ICRIER. Views expressed are personal
