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A “negative” IOD, wherein the eastern Indian Ocean waters off Indonesia and Australia turn unusually warm relative to the western part, is considered bad for the monsoon. Crops, like humans, need water and nutrients to survive and grow. There’s room for optimism on the first, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicting a normal southwest monsoon: Rainfall is expected to be 99 per cent of the historical average for the country during June-September. The sanguine forecast is based on “La Niña” conditions prevailing and likely to continue through the four-month monsoon season. La Niña is the opposite of El Niño — an abnormal warming of the eastern Pacific waters usually causing heavy rains around South America, but also drought in the other western end whose effects percolate to India. Besides La Niña, which is generally favourable for the Indian monsoon, the IMD is counting on a “neutral” Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). A “negative” IOD, wherein the eastern Indian Ocean waters off Indonesia and Australia turn unusually warm relative to the western part, is considered bad for the monsoon. The IMD believes that this time there will be La Niña and “neutral” IOD, at least till early in the season.
That hope — of a fourth consecutive normal monsoon — is somewhat negated when it comes to plant nutrients. India is today facing a tight supply position, especially in phosphatic and potassic fertilisers, ahead of the kharif sowings that will start with the monsoon. The country imports its entire muriate of potash (MOP) requirements. While it does manufacture phosphatic and complex fertilisers, their raw materials and intermediates — mainly rock phosphate, sulphur, phosphoric acid and ammonia — are largely imported. In the last one year, global prices of finished fertilisers and ingredients have doubled or trebled. The war in Ukraine — Russia was the world’s largest and its
next-door ally Belarus the sixth largest fertiliser exporter in 2020 — has only worsened things. Hardly any new imports have been contracted in the past two months, with companies unsure whether the government will allow them to pass on the higher prices or absorb the burden through increased subsidy rates.
What can the government do apart from announcing higher subsidy – which it must, to ensure adequate availability of nutrients by May-end? It should immediately launch a campaign to promote single super phosphate and complex fertilisers like 20:20:0:13 and 10:26:26. These contain less phosphorus or potash than di-ammonium phosphate and MOP, but farmers can be shown ways to apply them in the right dosage (along with farmyard manure, compost and organic wastes) without sacrificing crop yields. Use of high-analysis fertilisers is a luxury for a country with hardly any natural gas, rock phosphate, potash or elemental sulphur reserves. The government should also actively engage with countries such as Canada, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Togo, even Russia and Belarus, to contract more supplies, both for kharif and the next rabi season.
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