The Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, launched his rabi campaign, “ Khet Bachao Abhiyan ” (Save the Farm Campaign), on October 22 in Karnal, Haryana. His focus is to correct the imbalanced use of chemical fertilisers, which is harming soils and groundwater and polluting the air. He has appealed to farmers to use balanced doses of chemical fertilisers, in line with the doses recommended by state agriculture universities for major crops. He is well aware of the problem, but the issue is whether the farmers will heed his advice, especially when the pricing policy of urea, diammonium phosphate (DAP) and muriate of potash (MOP) gives them wrong signals. Sixteen years after the nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) was introduced, the imbalance in the use of nitrogen (N), Phosphate (P) and potash (K) has worsened.

Crops, like humans, need a balanced meal.…