Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare (DAC&FW) conducted a study to determine the impact of Neem Coated Urea that clearly demonstrates the benefits of the of the scheme, as detailed ahead.
Neem Coated Urea | Details
The interim report prepared by Agricultural Development and Rural Transformation Centre (ADRTC), Bengaluru has been submitted by Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare (DACFW).
Benefits of Neem Coated Urea
The brief findings of the study are as follows:
- Improvement in soil health;
- Reduction in costs with respect to plant protection chemicals;
- Reduction in pest and disease attack;
- An increase in yield of paddy, sugarcane, maize, soybean and tur/red gram to an extent of 5.79%, 17.5%, 7.14%, 7.4%and 16.88% respectively;
- Diversion of highly subsidized urea towards non-agricultural purposes negligible among farmers after the introduction of the mandatory policy of production and distribution of only Neem coated urea.
Neem Coated Urea | Background
- On 2nd June 2008, the Government had notified the policy for encouraging production and availability of fortified and coated fertilizers in the country wherein the indigenous manufacturers/producers of the subsidized fertilizers were allowed to produce fortified/coated subsidized fertilizers up to a maximum of 20%of their total production of respective subsidized fertilizers.
- This ceiling of production of Neem Coated Urea(NCU)was increased from the limit of 20% to a maximum of 35% of their total production vide notification dated 11th January, 2011.
- Government, on 24th March, 2015 made mandatory for all the indigenous producers of urea to produce 75%of their total production of subsidized urea as Neem Coated Urea. Subsequently, on 25th May 2015, Department of Fertilizers made it mandatory for all the domestic producers of urea to produce 100% as Neem Coated Urea with an extra MRP of 5% (of Rs. 5360/- per MT) to be charged by the fertilizer manufacturing entities from farmers. Entire quantity of indigenously produced urea and imported urea
- being neem coated w.e.f 1st September, 2015 and 1st December, 2015 respectively
This paper intended how to more beneficial Neem coated urea than ordinary urea,There is a lot of difference in Neem coated urea and the Plain one. In Neem coated urea, they put a layer of Neem over the plain urea that increases the land fertility capacity that leads to the higher production of crops."Slow release of Nitrogen."just like baby milk feed in with nipple rather than glass.The oil coating of Neem in Neem coated urea mixes up slowly with the land and the crops soaks it according to the need.
Urea constitutes about 82% of the fertilizer nitrogen (N) used in India. Nitrification inhibitors when applied along with urea reduce losses of applied N thereby resulting in improved yield of crops. In early 1970s, it was observed that oil extracted from the seeds of neem (Azadirachta indica A. Juss), a tall perennial tree growing widely in the tropics and subtropics, and the cake left after oil extraction possess nitrification inhibition properties. Since then more than 75 studies have been conducted to compare the performance of urea coated with neem cake (NCU) or neem oil (NOCU) in increasing the yield of rice, wheat, and several other crops vis-à-vis uncoated urea. In 2015, the Government of India directed that all fertilizer urea manufactured in the country or imported will have to be coated with neem oil at the rate of 0.5 kg per tonne. This decision was motivated not only by the better performance of NOCU vis-à-vis uncoated urea, but also by an expectation that it will lead to reduced consumption of urea. As a side effect, NOCU is also expected to prevent industrial uses of subsidized urea intended to be used in agriculture only. Based on research published in peer reviewed journals, the present review attempts to assess agronomic benefits of replacing urea with NOCU in terms of increased crop production and/or reduced demand for fertilizer N in India. Depending upon the concentration of triterpenoids or neem bitters, the active nitrification inhibitor compounds, neem cake, extract or oil have been used in different quantities to coat urea. Although mean increase in the grain yield of rice and wheat by applying NCU/NOCU was around 5 to 6 % over the yields obtained by urea at same N level, in about 30% comparisons no increase was observed. As observed increase in yields have been obtained in researcher's plots, the yield benefits of using NOCU should be considerably less when managed by farmers. Same applies to other crops such as sugarcane, cotton where also respectively, 8.7 and 4.3 % increase in yields have been recorded in researcher's plots. There is large variation in fertilizer N rate for different crops depending upon land holding size, whether crop is irrigated or unirrigated and also because some farmers are accustomed to use heavy doses of fertilizer N. According to principles of fertilizer evaluation, the difference between the performances of the two sources narrows down at high application rates. Further, the nitrification inhibitors perform better in irrigated than in rainfed crops and in acidic soil conditions than in neutral and alkaline soils. As more than 50% of the total urea consumed in India is applied to rice and wheat, and more than 30% is applied to rainfed crops, overall impact of coating all urea supplied to farmers with neem is likely to be small. With same general recommendations for managing urea and NOCU, a reduction in demand in fertilizer N cannot be expected. A perception that when farmers will get higher yields they will reduce the dose of NOCU as compared to urea may not work if the yield gains due to replacing of urea with NOCU are small and many a times not visible. Also, farmers will not readily cut down the fertilizer dose to avoid any risk for obtaining lower yields. Possibly, applying NOCU following the site-specific nutrient management principles will lead to production of yield levels higher than or similar to that obtained with untreated urea but with lower rates of application.
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