The Economic Times (India) published an op-ed co-authored by Barun Deb Pal and Anjani Kumar, IFPRI South Asia Office, and Smita Sirohi, ICAR-National Professor, MS Swaminathan Chair.
India’s fertilizer security is deeply tied to global supply chains. The country imports 60% of its DAP requirement, remains fully dependent on imported potash, and even domestic urea production relies heavily on imported liquefied natural gas.
“Recent price movements underline the seriousness of the risk. Between February and April 2026, international crude oil and fertilizer prices rose sharply, by about 58% and 66%, respectively. In the Indian context, an economy-wide assessment, using the Rural Investment and Policy Analysis (RIAPA) framework by economists from IFPRI and ICAR, suggests that, had these shocks been fully passed on to producers and households, annual retail inflation in April 2026 could have risen to around 5%, instead instead of the actual 3.48%”.