India's N-K ratio has dropped to an alarming level: Potash Corp

The imbalance in use of crop nutrients has pulled the Nitrogen to Potash ratio to an alarming level of 10:1, a leading Potash producer has said.

Speaking at a conference, Potash Corp’s Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer Wayne Brownlee said that India is probably closer to 10:1 when it comes to N:K use ratio. The ideal ratio expected is 3:1.

“It's our view that it's not a long-term sustainable strategy to get the nutrient balance right,” he added.

Potash Corp, one of the largest Potash producers globally also believes that India’s potash price resistance is making a big difference in the global potash market.

“India has gone down from shipments of about 6.5 million tonnes probably down to around 3 million tonnes, so it's close to a 3.5 million delta. And that makes a big difference... in the global market of 53 million tonnes, a delta of 3.5 million tonnes, makes a big difference in the psychology of the marketplace,” he said.

Earlier this month, the Indian fertiliser Industry too had raised an alarm over the constantly deteriorating Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash (NPK) use ratio in agricultural fields and also warned of fall in agricultural output if the trend continues.

According to the Fertiliser Association of India (FAI), the NPK ratio in the country has reached 6.5:2.9:1 in 2011-12. The ratio considered ideal stands at 4:2:1.

The ratio was closest to the ideal ratio in 2009-10, when it was 4.3:2:1. However, after the government introduced the Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) regime for P and K fertilisers in 2010, the prices of these nutrients spiraled rapidly while Urea prices remained controlled and significantly low.

Hence this has resulted in bias in favour of Urea when it comes to fertiliser use.

Prices of non-urea fertilisers have drastically gone up since the implementation of NBS for non-urea fertilisers in 2010.

Prices of Potassic fertiliser Di Ammonium Phosphate has gone up by over 150% from Rs 9350 in 2010 per tonne to Rs 24000 currently.

Similarly in the pottasic fertiliser Muriate of Potash (MoP) has shot up by 280% from Rs 4455 in 2010 to Rs 17000 currently. 

Presently, subsidised Urea for Agricultural use is sold at Rs 5,300 per tonne and the last time urea prices were raised by 10% was in 2010. recently, the cabinet sent the proposal of the department of fertilisers to raise Urea prices by 10% back.