Fertiliser fallout: A war & its impacts on what we produce & eat

What does a war between the US-Israel and Iran have to do with what a farmer in Punjab or Madhya Pradesh decides to plant — and ultimately, what we eat? Everything.

That war decides whether a bag of fertiliser will reach the farmer, and if it does not, the farmer has to rethink what to grow and how much land to cultivate.

In today’s agricultural systems, fertilisers are quite literally food for crops. They determine how much can be grown, how reliably and, ultimately, how much food reaches our plates and at what cost.

In this episode of Beyond The Plate, Down To Earth Special Correspondent Shagun discusses the scenario with Narasimha Reddy Donthi, a well-known public policy expert, consultant with Pesticide Action Network, India and visiting faculty at the Delhi-based Impact and Policy Research Institute.