Incentivise eco-friendly fertilisers

The growing awareness of the need to reduce the application of chemicals in agriculture is spurring the use of their safer eco-friendly alternatives like biofertilisers and biopesticides. Most of these are equally or, in some cases, more effective in promoting plant growth and protecting crops from pests, diseases, and other adverse factors. More importantly, they do not damage basic resources like soil and water. The indiscriminate use of pesticides, chemical fertilisers, and other synthetic yield-boosters has done considerable damage to soils, and has polluted water resources, in most areas where modern input-based intensive agriculture is in vogue. What is worse, pests and pathogens have started acquiring immunity against these chemical formulations. New and mutated versions of existing pests and diseases have also begun to emerge.

Consumer demand for the products grown without the use of toxic chemicals is steadily climbing. The agro-chemicals industry has, consequently, started responding to these developments. Many manufacturers of fertilisers, pesticides, and plant-growth hormones are now diversifying their production portfolios. They are putting up capacities to produce biological agro-inputs at their existing plants, or are setting up units for this purpose. Start-ups are playing a noteworthy role in producing and promoting bio-products. While 100 per cent replacement of conventional fertilisers and pesticides with their biological counterparts is neither feasible nor advisable, the trend of greater use of environment- and health-compatible biological farm inputs needs certainly to be encouraged. The ideal situation, according to experts, would be to promote conjunctive use of chemical and biological inputs to achieve optimal results. Many start-ups are offering innovative solutions to farmers’ crop protection-related problems based on this concept. Biofertilisers and biopesticides are deemed imperatives for sustainable agriculture.

Technically, biofertilisers are biological substances containing living microbes like bacteria, fungi, and algae, which are beneficial for both plants and soils. Their application stimulates plant growth by helping the roots to imbibe nutrients present in the soil, or by capturing them from the atmosphere or other sources and making them available to the plants. Organic manure, made largely from animal dung and farm waste, is generally the most commonly used biofertiliser. It’s another and, in several respects, better version — vermicompost — is also becoming popular. This is prepared by decomposing agricultural biomass and other types of farm waste with the help of earthworms.

Besides improving the physical condition of soils, biofertilisers help maintain their fertility by providing various macro- and micro-nutrients the plants need but fail to get from the commonly used fertilisers and nutrient mixtures. They also contain living micro-organisms that solubilise the soil’s inherent minerals like phosphates and potassium to convert them into the forms that can easily be absorbed by the plant roots. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria, such as Rhizobium and Azotobacter, help the root nodules of leguminous crops, like pulses, to absorb atmospheric nitrogen and make it available to the plants. Certain kinds of bacteria have recently been discovered and those can perform the same function in some non-leguminous crops as well. Quite often, these microbes help meet the nutrient demand of the host crop and also leave some residues for the use of the subsequent crops. A notable feature of biofertilisers is that, unlike chemical fertilisers, where a sizable part of the nutrients is lost as gases or through leaching, living organism-based products do not entail such losses. The microbes remain active in the soil for a long time. Moreover, biofertilisers improve the physical and biological state of the soils, thereby, facilitating proliferation of roots for vigorous plant growth.

Biopesticides, on the other hand, are products derived largely from naturally occurring living or non-living materials, including microbes, animals, plants, and minerals, which can prevent or cure plant diseases and control or repel pests without posing any environmental or health hazards. They provide a preferable alternative to chemical pesticides and other plant protection agents because they are biodegradable, besides being harmless for human beings and farm animals. Some bio-agents have also been discovered and those can check the growth of weeds by sterilising their pollens, and that stops their multiplication. The use of biopesticides also reduces the risk of weeds developing immunity against specific weedicides.

However, despite biofertilisers and biopesticides having proved their utility and getting due attention from farmers, their share in the fertiliser and agro-chemical market is still quite meagre. The notable part, nevertheless, is that their use has been growing at a robust annual rate of 7-8 per cent over the past five years. Industry circles believe that this rate may swell to over 10 per cent in the next five years, thanks to favourable government policies and burgeoning demand for organically grown products. The need now is to incentivise greater investment, both public and private, in developing newer means of boosting crop yields and guarding them against pests and diseases with minimal use of hazardous chemicals.

surinder.sud@gmail.com