China is using fertiliser as a weapon. And Modi government has shown little urgency to help farmers

Indian Express

4 days ago

I was in Bihar last week. A young farmer named Raju Singh greeted me with folded hands. But his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. 'Sir, bijli kabhi hai, kabhi nahi. Ab DAP (Di-ammonium Phosphate) bhi gaya. Ab boliye, kya ugaayein? Kyu ugaayein?' (The power supply is erratic. Now even DAP supplies have stopped. What do we grow now?) The question, 'Why even farm?' should give nightmares to policymakers in Delhi. When farmers stop wondering what to grow and start asking why, we are not facing an agricultural crisis. We are staring at an abyss of depleting national morale.
Raju isn't alone. Across Bihar — in Siwan, Samastipur, Darbhanga — I heard versions of the same story. Farmers queuing up for fertiliser and being told to 'wait', while private agents jack up prices under the counter. Some bought DAP at Rs 1,750 a bag — Rs 400 above the notified price — according to local mandi reports. Others simply gave up.
Fertiliser stock levels in India are nearly half of what they were at the same time last year. With such limited availability, prices are skyrocketing. The decline is largely due to China's informal ban on fertiliser exports to India. Despite the absence of a formal notification from their government, customs authorities and port officials in China have stopped clearing fertiliser shipments destined for India.
India is the largest importer of DAP in the world, the second-most used fertiliser in the country after urea. China has historically been the top exporter of DAP to India. Eighty per cent of India's speciality fertilisers — crucial for high-value horticultural crops like fruits and vegetables — also come from China. As the kharif sowing season (June–July) is underway, the shortage of DAP and speciality fertilisers is back-breaking for Indian farmers.
The government has shown no urgency. It has repeatedly raised slogans of Atmanirbhar Bharat. But this spirit of self-reliance is hardly reflected in primary sectors like agriculture. We are told to blame global forces for the disruptions, but this isn't a global halt. This ban is exclusive to India.
Why the ban? China has a tendency to weaponise trade to solve territorial disputes. In 2010, a collision between a Chinese fishing boat and Japanese coast guard vessels near the disputed Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands in China) led to the detention of the Chinese captain by Japan. In response, China halted rare earth exports to Japan, although this was not officially announced. India, of course, has its own unresolved territorial dispute with China. This is China's way of arm-twisting India into submission. The Narendra Modi government is yet to call out China.
At the time of the dispute, Japan, too, was heavily reliant on China for its rare earth supplies. It took the matter to the WTO, and in 2014, it ruled against China to stabilise rare earth prices.The matter generated ripples across the world as many countries re-evaluated their reliance on China. Japan, for example, initiated efforts to diversify its supply chain of rare earth reserves. Consequently, its dependence on China for rare earth reserves has gone down by at least 30 per cent.
Having witnessed China leverage its rare earth dominance with Japan, the Modi government should have moved on a war footing to reduce India's dependence on China from the day it assumed office in 2014. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) urged the government to establish an India Rare Earth Mission. This suggestion first fell on deaf ears. It is only during the past couple of months that the Centre has sprung into action on this matter — albeit too little and too late.
It is too late because India is already a victim of China's informal ban on the export of rare earth reserves. It is too little because this last-minute diversification of supply chains and the endeavour to boost domestic production of rare earth reserves are welcome, but not enough. As for fertilisers, the bulk of India's existing DAP production capacity was established under successive Congress governments. The BJP, on the other hand, during the past 11 years, has only shown interest in producing polarising propaganda.
The Modi government now finds itself facing a rather unconventional form of warfare. China is not directly challenging India on a battlefield or in diplomatic forums. Instead, it has launched a covert assault on farms, infrastructure projects and our manufacturing sector. The truth is, we are losing ground. Today, the ban on the export of rare earth magnets is slowly suffocating our manufacturing sector — especially defence, EVs, and electronics. Exploration and diversification of the supply chain are being taken up only now, when the damage is already done. Chinese firms have refused to supply spare parts for tunnel boring machines used in critical infrastructure projects in India, citing vague procedural hurdles.
China is throttling our agriculture during the peak season. All we have received in the name of policy over the past 11 years are rebranded schemes and repackaged slogans. In the last three months alone, over 750 farmers have died by suicide in Maharashtra. The scarcity of fertilisers will spike fruit and vegetable prices, fuel food inflation across rural India and hurt the urban middle class.
States like Bihar that are already net importers of several nutrient-rich crops will bear the brunt. Let's be clear: This isn't the doing of foreign forces. It's a failure of Indian hands: Those in charge who promised atmanirbharta and delivered dependence, those who promised vision and delivered a vacuum.
Across the country, farmers, workers, and families are fast seeing through the BJP's propaganda. The day isn't far when they'll return the favour of indifference to the BJP — with a quiet, decisive and stinging lesson in democracy.
The writer is chairman, media and publicity department, AICC