PHOTO: AFP/FILE

AFP, New Delhi

India’s fertiliser production plunged nearly a quarter in March, official data showed, after natural gas imports used in its manufacture were hit by the Middle East conflict.

Natural gas is used to power the production of urea, a key part of the lifeline fertilisers used by India’s vast agriculture sector, making it deeply sensitive to global energy price swings.

The slump comes after Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which key energy supplies and fertiliser-linked inputs pass, after the United States and Israel launched their war on the country on February 28.

A third of the world’s fertilisers normally transit the waterway, and the disruption has prompted multiple warnings about the impact on food production

Individual farms are small and often unproductive, but agriculture employs more than 45 percent of people in India, the world’s most populous nation.

“Fertiliser production declined by 24.6 percent in March 2026, over March 2025,” the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement late Monday.

The drop came after output had risen 3.4 percent in February, 3.7 percent in January and 4.1 percent in December 2025.

India’s Ministry of Petroleum has insisted there are “adequate stocks of fertilisers available”, and that the “sourcing of fertilisers being diversified across multiple countries”.

India’s fertiliser demand peaks during the Kharif sowing season, in June to July, ahead of the monsoon rains, and then again for the Rabi season, from October to November, for sowing of winter crops.

Earlier in April, India hiked subsidies for fertilisers 11 percent to protect farmers from surging prices.

India relies on imports for supplies of urea, as well raw materials such as rock phosphate, phosphoric acid and potash, which are key components of fertilisers.

Disruptions to fertiliser supplies caused by the Middle East war pose a double threat to global food security, the World Trade Organization warned last month.