WEST ASIA CRISIS: WHY INDIA NEEDS A FERTILISER SECURITY STRATEGY
India's agricultural input system is more exposed to global shocks than is often acknowledged. The country imports approximately 60% of its diammonium phosphate requirement, is fully dependent on imported potash, and even domestic urea production relies heavily on imported liquefied natural gas. The ongoing West Asia conflict has brought these vulnerabilities into sharp relief, between February and April 2026, international crude oil and fertilizer prices rose by approximately 58% and 66% respectively. An economy-wide assessment using the Rural Investment and Policy Analysis (RIAPA) framework by economists from IFPRI and ICAR found that, had these price shocks been fully passed on, annual retail inflation in April 2026 could have reached around 5%, against the actual 3.48%, with rural households bearing a disproportionate burden given that food, transport, and fuel constitute a large share of their expenditure.
Writing in The Economic Times, IFPRI's Dr. Barun Deb Pal and Dr. Anjani Kumar argue that India's fertilizer policy has long been focused on price management, absorbing shocks through subsidies after they arrive, but that repeated disruptions, from COVID-19 to the Russia-Ukraine war to the current West Asia crisis, demand a shift toward risk management. A fertilizer shock, they caution, is not merely an input-cost problem: under a scenario where the government absorbs a 45% rise in import prices of energy and fertilizer inputs alongside a 10% urea shortage, the study estimates a GDP decline of around 1%. The authors call for an integrated fertilizer security strategy that connects energy security, soil health, import policy, climate commitments, and food-price stability, and for governance mechanisms that cut across ministerial silos to manage these interlocking risks before the next crisis arrives.
