The government has introducted 100% Neem Coating on all subsidized agricultural grade urea in the country in order to increase the nutrient efficiency, crop yield, soil health and check the diversion of agricultural grade urea for non-agricultural activities.
Urea has been one of the most important chemical Fertilizers for our crops and has been one of the instrumental factors in the increase in food grain production of the country.
Urea is a white crystalline substance with the chemical formula NH2-CO-NH2; it is highly water soluble and contains 46% nitrogen. It is used extensively as chemical fertilizer as well as for industrial uses.
In order to help farmers, procure urea at reasonable prices, Government of India supplies urea at a determined retail price which is much lesser than the cost of production or cost of import of urea. Every year the government spends more than Rs. 50,000 crores to ensure that the farmers are able to get urea at affordable prices. There were findings and reports that a lot of urea applied by farmers to the crops was getting wasted leading to low nutrient efficiency, water and soil contamination and wastage of highly subsidized urea. Apart from this there was diversion of the highly subsided agricultural urea to chemical industries and nonagricultural practices. This resulted not only in wastage of precious subsidies but also occasional shortage of urea for genuine farmers.
It was also well known that world over different chemical inhibitors had been used as coatings over urea grains and prills to reduce the rate of release of urea into soil so as to increase nutrient efficiency, crop yield, lessen wastage as well as reduce soil and water contamination. Neem oil, a wholly organic product, is one such inhibitor which had the quality that could both slow down nitrogen release from urea to soil thus increasing nutrient use efficiency, decreasing soil and water contamination and also reducing appreciably the chances of diversion of agricultural grade urea for many non-agricultural uses. In case of India, instead of chemical inhibitors, use of organic neem as coating of urea was more beneficial. Until 2014 only around 25 percent of the entire urea produced in the country was neem coated.
It was with this background that in 2015, the Government of India took a transformational decision to introduce 100 % neem coating on all subsidized agricultural grade urea in the country. All the indigenous and imported urea were neem coated so as to make the urea slow release and difficult to use for non-agricultural purposes. Since 2015, the entire urea supplied to more than 140 million farmers of the country i.e about 340 lakh metric tonnes urea per year, has been neem coated successfully.
Other value additions
Source : KRIBHCO
Source : Department of Fertilizers
Last Modified : 10/18/2023
Provides information about Sulphur coated Urea
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