What Farmers in Bihar Can Teach Us about Climate-Smart Agriculture

Ask any farmer in Bihar how they decide on how much fertilizer to use, and the answer is almost always the same: more than enough to protect my crop. In a region where every harvest is uncertain—threatened by erratic rains, worsening soil, and unpredictable pests—fertilizer is the one thing farmers can still control.

Fertilizer use in Bihar skyrocketed in the past four decades. From just over 21 kg per hectare in 1980, it has now grown more than 10 times to 224 kg per hectare—second only to Punjab’s 238 kg per hectare. But even then, farmers in Bihar produce yields significantly lower than their counterparts in Punjab.

Research to understand nutrient practices in Bihar reveals that two out of three farmers who grow rice and wheat over apply fertilizer, especially urea, hoping to secure their yields against an unforgiving climate.

In our years of experience with farmers in Bihar, we have seen that what farmers rely on as protection is silently working against them, i.e. more fertilizer does not mean more yields. While fertilizer use has jumped, yields have barely budged. Bihar’s average rice yields hover around 2.53 tonnes per hectare, well below the national average of 3.15 tonnes per hectare. High fertilizer use is often a symptom of other challenges that restrict yields—poor soil health, old seed varietals and increased pest and disease attacks.

The overuse of fertilizer comes at a steep cost. For one, it is expensive for farmers—costing thousands of rupees each season—in addition to approximately Rs 1.23 lakh crore in annual government subsidy spend. Two, its over application means more environmental pollution—water, soil and greenhouse gas emissions.

Excessive fertilizer usage degrades soils. Soil should hold a nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium (NPK) ratio of 4:2:1. Today, Bihar’s soil is at an imbalanced 14.4:4.5:1—with nitrogen dominating and squeezing out other essential nutrients. This imbalance weakens soil health over time, leaving fields less resilient and less productive. It’s a vicious cycle: poor soil, uncertain weather and pestilence pressures drive farmers to apply more fertilizer, which further depletes the soil.

Breaking the Cycle

Our fertilizer trials in Bihar have been very encouraging. Our work on N-Balance—a tool developed by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to track how much nitrogen goes into a field and how much leaves with the harvested crop—has shown that farmers don’t need more fertilizer, they need the right amount, applied at the right time, tailored to their crop, their soil and their farm’s conditions.

EDF introduced N-balance to over 20,000 farmers across nine districts in Bihar. It helps farmers see that the excess fertilizer they are applying isn’t boosting their yields, is draining their pockets and polluting their water.

In the 2023 paddy season, 2,400 farmers were provided with personalised fertilizer recommendations to cut their excessive urea use by an average of 67 kg per hectare. For the typical smallholder farmer with an average farm size of 0.2 hectares, that’s a savings of 14 kg of urea per season.

Despite using less fertilizer, farmers didn’t lose their yields—1,605 farmers reported higher yields, with average rice yields rising from 2.93 tonnes per hectare in 2022 to 3.58 tonnes per hectare in 2023. The wheat season presented a similar story. Over 4,200 farmers reduced their urea use by 32 kg per hectare. Once again, yields held steady or improved. On average, wheat farmers saw their yield rise from 2.5 tonnes per hectare to 2.7 tonnes per hectare.

This is not just good for farmers’ incomes, it’s good for Bihar’s environment and for the climate. Excess nitrogen fertilizer is a major source of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 270 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

If we scaled up N-balance to reach all of Bihar’s 13mn paddy and wheat farmers, they could collectively save 1.31 lakh metric tonnes of urea every year, saving government subsidies of Rs 700 crore and emissions by 1.6 lakh metric tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.

A Smarter Future is Within Reach

The future of farming in Bihar is not in more fertilizer. It is in smarter farming, rooted in science, supported by practical tools like N-balance, and led by farmers themselves.

The message from Bihar is clear: balanced fertilizer use works. It protects yields, saves money, reduces pollution and helps restore the health of the soil farmers depend on. The question is: are we ready to scale up this success? Bihar’s farmers have shown they are ready to change. It’s time for all of us—policymakers, scientists and agricultural leaders—to match their ambition.

The writer is lead adviser, People and Nature at Environmental Defense Fund