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Singh said that the basal application of fertilizers just after crop sowing needs to be done through conventional fertilisers.
Potential to transform agriculture
TERI has developed three nano-fertilizer technologies – urea, DAP and Phosphorous up to commercial scale, which is being marketed by private manufacturers including Coromandel International and Paradeep Phosphates.
When used alongside conventional fertilizers, nano-fertilizer formulations have shown the potential to reduce chemical fertilizer use by up to 50%, while enhancing crop quality and improving farmers’ incomes.
In the field efficacy trials under which both nano and conventional fertilizers used sequentially conducted in collaboration with several institutes of Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR,), TERI has found increase in yield and reduction in conventional fertilizer use in groundnut, pigeonpea, chickpea aod soybean crops.
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Challenge of misperception and adoption
Singh said that large-scale adoption has remained limited—primarily due to early miscommunication, such as the claim that one litre of nano urea replaces a 45 kg bag of conventional urea.“This created the misleading impression of a one-to-one substitute, leading to inconsistent results for farmers who used nano fertilizers in isolation,” Singh said.
Fertilizer cooperative major Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) has launched naon-urea, nano-DAP and other products since 2021. In May, 2025, U S Awasthi, former managing director, IFFCO had stated “adoption of nano-fertilisers is not as fast as expected,”.
The fertilizer cooperative major had launched nano-urea and nano-DAP in June, 2021 and April, 2023 aimed at decreasing the country’s import dependence on soil nutrient varieties. Launch of Nano Zinc and copper is expected soon.
Against the current total annual manufacturing capacity of 289.5 million bottles (500 ml each) of nano-fertiliser, the cooperative major sold 26.5 million and 9.7 million bottles of nano urea plus and nano-DAP respectively in FY25, which is 31% and 118% more than 2023-24.
“The sale volume is equivalent to 1.2 million tonne (MT) of conventional urea and 0.48 MT of conventional DAP,” according to a statement by the cooperative.
According to industry sources, the large-scale adoption of nano variants of urea and DAP, may take at least three more years. The government has been giving priority to nano fertilisers with a view to cutting extensive use of highly subsidised conventional fertilizers.
Out of the total annual consumption of 60 MT of fertilizers including urea, DAP and potash. The government supplies around 60 MT of highly subsidized fertilizers annually to farmers out of which around 18% is met through imports. In 2024-25, the government’s urea subsidy spending was Rs 1.91 lakh crore.
In case of urea, farmers pay a fixed price Rs 242 per bag (45 kg) against the cost of production of around Rs 2,650 per bag. The balance is provided by the government as a subsidy to fertiliser units. The urea prices have been unchanged since March, 2018.The retail prices of phosphatic and potassic (P&K) fertiliser, including DAP were ‘decontrolled’ in 2020 with the introduction of a ‘fixed-subsidy’ regime as part of Nutrient Based Subsidy mechanism announced by the government twice in a year.