IFFCO, one of the largest fertilizer producers in India, has launched a new product that it refers to as a urea nano fertilizer. To be sold in 500 ml bottles, the liquid product is said to contain nano particles of urea. The company claims that the efficiency benefits of the product mean that one bottle can replace one bag of conventional urea. Typically, one bag of urea in India would be 45 or 50 kg.
The company said the product was developed in India by the IFFCO’s Nano Biotechnology Research Centre in Kalol, in the state of Gujarat, and has a patented process.
According to IFFCO, “nano urea prepared by nanotechnology contains nanoscale particles of nano urea” and the “average physical size of nano urea particles is in the range of 20-50 nm[nanometres].”
The company stated the product was developed “to replace conventional urea and it can curtail the requirement of the same by at least 50 percent. It contains 40,000 ppm of nitrogen in 500 ml which is equivalent to the impact of nitrogen nutrient provided by one bag of conventional urea.”
Production of the nano urea liquid commenced June 2021 at IFFCO’s facility at Kalol. IFFCO has a urea plant there with an annual capacity of 550,000 t/y, according to the company’s website.
IFFCO stated the production of the nano urea liquid will “get a further boost when two more units planned to set up at Aonla and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh, will go onstream in phase 2, with total production capacity reaching 18 crore bottles (each 500 mL) per annum” [18 crore bottles = 180 million bottles].
Pricing IFFCO stated it has priced nano urea liquid at Rupees 240 per 500ml bottle for farmers, which is 10 percent cheaper than the cost of a 50 kg bag of conventional urea, according to IFFCO. The website for Department of Fertilizers, Government of India, noted the maximum retail price (MRP) is fixed by the government and is Rupees 268 for a 50 kg bag, and Rupees 242 for a 45 kg bag of urea. The MRP is
exclusive of taxes and charges towards neem-coating. “The difference between the delivered cost of fertilizers at farm gate and MRP payable by the farmer is given as subsidy to the fertilizer manufacturer/importer by the Government of India,” stated the website.
IFFCO plans a massive countrywide campaign to demonstrate and train farmers about usage and application. The information sent to New AG International suggests the product is to be applied as a foliar spray.
“Foliar application of nano urea (liquid) at critical crop growth stages of a plant effectively fulfills its nitrogen requirement and leads to higher crop productivity in comparison to conventional urea,” stated IFFCO.
Trial results IFFCO stated the product’s efficacy was tested in around 11,000 farmer field trials and undertaken on more than 94 crops across India. “In the recent countrywide trials conducted on 94 crops, an average eight percent increase in yield has been witnessed,” noted the company.
For a product to be described as a nano fertilizer, it is usually constructed in one of the following three ways: “The nutrient can be encapsulated inside nanomaterials such as nanotubes or nanoporous materials, coated with a thin protective polymer film, or delivered as particles or emulsions of nanoscale dimensions” (DeRosa, Nature Nanotechnology, 2010). It has not been specified by IFFCO if any other materials are in the formulation. The only indication was on the size of the urea particles that were on a nanometre scale.
Safety considerations Nano fertilizers have been the subject of extra scrutiny from a biosafety point of view. According to IFFCO, “nano urea (liquid) has been tested for biosafety and toxicity as per the guidelines of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India, and international guidelines developed by ECD which are adopted and accepted globally.”
The company continued: “Nano urea (liquid) is completely safe for human, animals, birds, rhizosphere organisms and environment at the recommended levels of application. Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DAC and FW), Government of India, has notified IFFCO nano urea (liquid) as a nanofertilizer under the Fertilizer Control Order (FCO).”
Urea subsidy Given the size of India’s population, it is little surprise that India’s fertilizer subsidies and particularly that of urea have been a hot political issue for decades. Each budget announcement by the Indian government in April is a closely watched event.
The total fertilizer subsidy bill for 2018-19 was Rupees 73,435 crore, which equates to USD$ 10.1 billion. Urea formed 67 percent of this. Domestically produced urea takes the larger share over imported urea. India produced around 24.9 million t of urea in 2019-20 fertilizer year, according to India’s Department of Fertilizers. India urea import volumes can vary, with 7.2 million t/y being the 10-year average. Total consumption of urea is around 30 million t/y.
Urea import tenders, which can result in the import of one million t of urea or more, can be a key driver in the international urea market. India’s urea imports usually contribute to around 15 percent of total global urea trade.
The reduction of that import figure has been a long-term aim of the government since the price of high cost imported urea increases its subsidy bill.
IFFCO stated the new product “does not involve any government subsidy and will be made available to farmers at a 10 percent lower price than a bag of subsidized urea.”
Replacing solid tonnes IFFCO claims it will ramp up production of the nano urea liquid. “IFFCO aims to reach production capacity of 32 crore bottles per annum in its phase 3, which shall replace 137 lakh MT of subsidized urea” [137 lakh t = 13.7 million t]. In other words, it would produce 320 million bottles to replace 13.7 million t of subsidized urea, according to the company. Taking 320 million bottles and replacing each one with a 50 kg-bag, equates to 16 million t of urea. The company appears to have built in some tolerance to its estimation, and this could indicate the volume of urea used in producing the nano liquid.
If production does get to phase 3, and towards the projected production figure, this could essentially amount to reducing the import quantity, assuming consumption levels remain the same.
No timelines were given on the phasing of production ramp-up in the information from IFFCO. ●
Rice paddy field . Tamil Nadu, India
In the recent countrywide trials conducted on 94 crops, an average eight percent increase in yield has been witnessed.
Cultivation of sunflowers in Andhra Pradesh, India
A mobile phone app – launched by an international team of scientists – will support farmers across Africa to adopt environmentally friendly ways of protecting their crops from pests.
African smallholder farmers face major challenges from weeds such as striga and insect pests such as fall armyworm. Fall armyworm is a serious threat to food security and livelihoods and already affects at least 400,000 hectares, causing extensive crop losses.
But a solution exists: “push-pull technology” is a scientific method of planting crops such as maize and sorghum alongside particular species of forage grasses and legumes, which repel pests and suppress weeds.
The method was developed by scientists at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) in Kenya with partners and is designed to protect the plants against devastating pests like the fall armyworm and the striga weed, with the companion plants also improving soil fertility.
A major challenge is how to communicate advice and information about this crop management technique to millions of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. To help address this challenge, a new mobile phone app – called Push-Pull – has been launched by Agape Innovations Ltd, in collaboration with a team of scientists from the University of Leeds, UK, Keele University, UK, and icipe.
The app is part of a larger project called Scaling up Biocontrol Innovations in Africa, funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), which seeks to understand how biocontrol methods have been used across Africa and to encourage their uptake. The project involves a cluster of previous GCRF-funded research programs, including the Leeds-led AFRICAP project.
“The push-pull method of pest control is decades old and is used successfully by thousands of smallholder farmers across Africa,” said Dr. Steve Sait, principal investigator from Leeds’ School of Biology. “We hope this collaboration, and this new app, can help us extend knowledge of this technique to potentially millions of other farmers who could be benefitting from it. Compared to chemical pesticides, push-pull costs less money to the farmer, results in less damage to their crops, and it avoids harming other insect species that play valuable roles in the ecosystem.
“We consulted widely with farmers in Kenya and I’m excited to see how their contribution has made the app user friendly and could lead to more uptake of push-pull farming.”
Research by the scientists behind the push-pull technique has proven that odours released by the companion plants can effectively repel fall armyworm and protect crops against the pest.
Early adopter farmers have had great success with the technique, reporting five times less fall armyworm damage and a doubling or even tripling of crop yield, showing the huge potential this has for farmers and crop-producing smallholders. It also reduces the environmental impact of farming by protecting against pests without using pesticides, as well as improving soil quality without inorganic fertilizers.
The Push-Pull app, which was launched in mid-August, has been developed by Agape Innovations and is available on Android phones. It has been designed to work on the basic smartphones that are being increasingly used by smallholder farmers in Africa. It gives farmers information they need to get started with push-pull farming, and is not only free but will work offline, meaning a lack of internet connection in rural regions will not affect its function.
The ultimate goal is to provide a resource for farmers that is informed by science, protects their crops and improves their harvest, which they can access any time of day from anywhere in the world.
According to Paul Mugisha, CEO of Agape Innovations Ltd, the company built the Push-Pull app as a global tool to equip a farmer with all that is needed for a successful push-pull garden. “Embedded with audio, visual and graphical expressions, we are certain the Push-Pull app will be relevant to maize and sorghum farmers worldwide for both today and tomorrow in controlling fall armyworm, striga and maize stalk borer,” he said.
Professor Toby Bruce, from Keele University’s School of Life Sciences, added: “We are excited to see if this app can serve as a vehicle for taking practical information to the farmer. It is designed to share key details about how to get started with push-pull. We hope this will increase the number of farmers taking up this innovative approach that provides real benefits by improving crop protection and food security.”
The Push-Pull app can be downloaded on the Google Play website. ●
While agricultural production around the world struggles with declining soil health, Australian researchers are investigating production of a sustainable organic nitrogen fertilizer made from aquatic cyanobacterial biomass—ideally suited for badly degraded areas reliant on chemical fertilizers.
"Many soils are degraded and becoming less fertile. This challenges agriculture to produce sufficient high-quality food to feed the continuously growing population, which is further exacerbated by climatic instability threatening crop production," said Dr. Kirsten Heimann, Flinders University researcher and associate professor.
Scientists in Australia, U.S. and Europe are testing a new biofertilizer made from a fast-growing freshwater cyanobacterium Tolypothrix, which can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere without the need for additional nitrogen fertilization, making the biomass inexpensive to produce compared to alternative microalgal and macroalgal biofertilizers.
This form of non-toxic blue-green algae can be cultivated in freshwater, and even slightly saline or industrial wastewater such as from coal-fired power stations, the research team has found. Capturing biofuel may also be used to offset production costs.
Energy inputs for the production of Tolypothrix biomass can be offset by producing biogas, essentially a methane-rich gas for either drying the biomass to extract high-value health supplement phycocyanin or to produce carbon and nitrogen-rich liquid and solid biofertilizers to remediate soil infertility.
In a recent paper in Chemosphere, Heimann and colleagues in Australia, the U.S. and Spain investigate Tolypothrix production as a sustainable solution for biological soil improvement, which when combined with biogas or the spirulina-like nutritional powder promises "strong economic returns for regional and remote farming communities."
"Australian soils, in particular in the marginal wheat belt in Western Australia, are structurally degraded, which cannot be overcome by applications of synthetic fertilizers," said Heimann, from the Flinders University Centre for Marine Bioproducts Development in South Australia.
"To improve soil structure, organic carbon applications are required to return the soils' capacity to sustain a healthy soil microbiome and to improve the soils' cation exchange of nutrients and water-holding capacity."
Researchers say conversion of pond-produced cyanobacterial biomass produced on farming land would provide a major in-situ source of renewable nitrogen-rich fertilizer, also helping to reduce carbon emissions from chemical fertilizer production and transport. ●
PHOTO: AFRICAP
The Push-Pull app gives farmers information they need to get started with push-pull farming.
The Push-Pull app is available on Android phones.
Photo: Agape Innovations Ltd.
