According to a UN report, India, the second most populated country will witness population growth rate of 1.25% during the current decade and will surpass China to become the most populated country by 2025. Indian agriculture has come a long way since the Green Revolution of the late 1960s. India presents an interesting scenario: both GDP and food grain production in the country have risen faster than the growth in population over the 50 years since Independence from 1947 – 1997. However, agricultural growth had stagnated in recent years with the food grain production having grown at an average annual rate of only 1% during the 10 year period 1997-98 to 2006-07.

The recovery of the Indian agriculture was seen in 2011 post the introduction of Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) in April 2010. The food grain production in India in the FY2014 is estimated to be 263 million metric tonnes. This makes India the third largest agricultural producer in the world. However, India’s agricultural yield of 2 metric tonnes/hectare is lower than the global average. One of the key reasons for the low yield is loss of crops due to pests – which in turn can be attributed to the low consumption of pesticides – 0.58 Kg per hectare compared to the global average of 3 Kg per hectare. The Indian government estimates this loss to be around $8.5 billion every year on an average. The low usage of pesticides are on account of low purchasing power of farmers, lack of awareness about crop protection benefits and poor accessibility of crop protection chemicals.

India is the fourth largest producer of agrochemicals globally, after United States, Japan and China. The industry can be divided into following segments:

  • Pesticides Segment
  • Seeds Segment
  • Fertilizers Segment