Officials familiar with the matter said that the high demand for fertilizer during the upcoming planting season, and the scarcity of supplies due to the escalating conflict in West Asia, prompted the Ministry of Agriculture to use the Agrestak platform, a digital hub that brings together more than 90 million farmers and their lands, to rationalize the sale of subsidized fertilizers.
At an inter-ministerial press conference on Monday, Aparna S Sharma, Additional Secretary in the Fertilizers Ministry, said stocks are currently sufficient but supplies have been hit, leading to higher prices. She added that the country’s stockpile stands at 18 million tons, which is higher than 14 million tons at this time last year, but the total demand for the next summer season is expected to reach 39 million tons.
Agristack, where states have consolidated their own warehouses, has approximately 92.4 million digital IDs for farmers. With such a large database, it would be helpful to “accurately estimate demand and efficiently channel crop nutrients to farmers by mapping requirements and cropping patterns,” said one of the officials cited above.
The goal is to prevent misuse, overuse or diversion of subsidized agricultural chemicals toward illegal non-agricultural industrial use, according to the official. He said farmers who do not use Agrestak will receive fertilizer as usual, but there will be stricter checks to verify purchases through point-of-sale devices.
The government’s Agristack and Public Financial Management System, which is the engine behind cash transfers to farmers under the PM Kisan programme, will be leveraged to ensure “verifiable” last-mile delivery, the official added.
On March 25, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh, in a review with ministry officials, asked officials to expedite work on expanding farmers’ identities to make the “fertilizer distribution system transparent.”
India relies on imports to meet domestic demand for fertilisers, which is crucial to its food security. The war in West Asia has choked off flows of crude oil, fertilizers and liquefied natural gas, sparking crises around the world.
The Fertilizers Ministry is reviewing data from a recent trial across four states, where farmers purchasing fertilizers through Aadhaar and their farmer ID cards were validated for documentation and generated fertilizer usage data, according to a second official.
Agristack includes a record of crops planted, which allows administrators to know what was planted and where. A technical expert appointed by the ministry said: “These details are now being studied.”
The expert said compiling land and crop data with “digitally verifiable credentials” allows the government to make better estimates of fertilizer demand, as the optimal amounts per hectare required by major crops are known.
Additional Secretary Sharma said at the press conference that India has diversified its fertilizer sources to include Russia, Morocco, Australia, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia and Canada, but prices have risen.
A statement issued last week by the Fertilizer Association of India, an industry body, said the companies are “working closely with the Government of India, state governments and other stakeholders to ensure smooth distribution of fertilizers across regions.”
