100 districts of India consume 50 per cent of fertilizers

Ludhiana, Nov 22 (UNI) Though India is the third largest gross consumer of fertilizers in the world, the average rate of nutrient application was highly skewed with only 102 districts out of total 500 country wide, contributing to 50 per cent of the national fertilizer consumption.

"Indian farmers consume 20.62 million tonne fertilizers in a year with large areas using small quantity of fertilizers," said Dr G S Kalkat, Chairman of Punjab State Farmers' Commission while inaugurating an international symposium on balanced use of fertilizers which began at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) here today. He was addressing the delegates from across the globe.

The symposium is a joint venture of PAU and International Potash Institute (IPI), Switzerland. This is the first ever symposium of the IPI in a developing country. IPI is active in China, South East Asia, West Asia, Northern Africa, Southern and Eastern Europe and Latin America.

The symposium is being organised in the back drop of agrarian crisis and concern over large scale depletion of soil nutrients, receding water table and declining food production.

In his address Dr Kalkat pointed out that soil health and productivity are the key to sustainability of agriculture.Talking about future strategies to increase agriculture productivity, he called upon the scientists to focus on using available nutrient and water resources efficiently.

''Integrated nutrient management together with effective crop, soil water and land management will be critical for sustaining agriculture over a long term'', he said.

Dr Kalkat said agricultural growth rate does not concile with the population growth rate. Despite 200 million tonne of food production, the country is unable to meet its domestic demand and had to import wheat for sustenance to meet the food requirements of the growing population.

The cereal requirement of India by 2020 will be between 257 million tonne to 296 million tonne depending on income level of people, he said and added that the demand for rice and wheat is expected to increase to 122 million tonne and 103 million tonne respectively by 2020. By 2020 average yield of rice and wheat has to be increased by 56 per cent and 62 per cent respectively, he added.

In his presidential remarks, PAU Vice-Chancellor Dr K S Aulakh said the present world-wide crisis in agriculture has lead to collapse of eco-system in which soil, water and air have been polluted and contaminated.

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