Nano urea will help farmers switch to natural farming without output going down: Shah

Gandhinagar: The nano urea and nano DAP introduced by IFFCO will help farmers adopt natural farming without compromising on production, Union cooperation minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said.

He was speaking after inaugurating a nano DAP (diammonium phosphate liquid ) manufacturing plant at the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited's (IFFCO) unit at Kalol in the district. It is the world's first such plant, IFFCO said in a statement.

"When a list of the biggest experiments in the field of agriculture will be prepared ten years from now, I can say with certainty that IFFCO's nano urea and nano DAP will find a place in it," he said.

The need of the hour was to reduce the use of urea and move towards natural farming, the Union minister added.

"If you want to move towards natural farming without reducing the production for three years (period needed to prepare the soil for such farming), then use nano urea and nano DAP," Shah said.

Nano urea does not percolate into the ground, and hence it does not harm earthworms, an important part of the natural farming system, he said.

Farmers can keep experimenting with nano urea for a couple of years until the land is ready and gets certified for natural farming, he said.

The minister urged farmers to switch from granular urea and DAP to the more efficient liquid forms of these fertilisers, saying that the use of granular urea harms not only crops but also the people's health.

The previous government ignored both farmers and farming for years, he alleged.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi ensured that when there was a rise in the cost of fertiliser after the COVID-19 pandemic, the burden was not passed onto farmers. The result was that the subsidy on fertilisers rose from Rs 73,000 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 2.55 lakh crore, which was paid by the government," he said.

Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers Mansukh Mandaviya, IFFCO chairman Dileep Sanghani and its CEO and MD Udai Shanker Awasthi were also present on the occasion.

IFFCO said in its statement that its first-of-its-kind plant that will produce 500 ml IFFCO nano DAP (liquid) bottles equivalent to one bag of conventional DAP. The plant will have the capacity to manufacture two lakh bottles per day, it said.

The introduction of IFFCO nano DAP (liquid), a project spearheaded by prime minister Modi, "will fundamentally change India's agricultural industry, bringing prosperity to farmers and fostering self-sufficiency in fertilizer production," it said.

In February 2021 Modi approved the production of nano urea, and by 2023 the country developed the infrastructure necessary to produce roughly 17 crore nano urea bottles, the statement said.

IFFCO has taken the lead by launching most of the operational plants and more are in the pipeline, it said.

It began to make nano urea in August 2021, and as of March 2023, around 6.3 crore bottles had been produced, it said.

Earlier in the day, Shah performed ground-breaking ceremony of a sports complex at Mansa in his Lok Sabha constituency of Gandhinagar. The complex will be constructed at a cost of Rs 13 crore as part of a joint initiative of the Gujarat sports department and Sarvodaya Higher Education Society.

The state-of-the-art sports complex will have an indoor multipurpose hall, 400-metre athletics track, football ground and two tennis courts, among other things, officials said.