The nutrition Pakistan pays for.
Pakistan is not short of fertilizer. It is short of nutrition that reaches the crop. Ask why yields are flat and the reflex answer is that farmers need to apply more. The published data says something harder. Pakistan already applies more nutrient per acre than the world average and more than the United States. What has fallen is how much crop each kilogram of that nutrient produces.
Roughly 1 kg of nitrogen in 4 is taken up by the crop. The country buys the other 3, carries them to the field, and loses them there. Every figure below names its source and its year.
Punjab's soil, measured 770,160 times →
This page says alkalinity is why the nutrient does not arrive. That is not an opinion here: it is measured across 36 districts, and you can read your own.
← All knowledge · The state of the soil · Application systems
Pakistan is not under-fertilised.
The first thing to establish, because almost every other conclusion depends on it.
FERTILIZER PER ACRE
In 2023, Pakistan used 63.3 kg of fertilizer nutrient (N, P2O5 and K2O together) per acre of cropland. The world average was 47.1 kg. Pakistan used 1.3 times the world average.
Each line is a country. Hover over the chart to see every country in that year. Switch to "In 1 year" to see where Pakistan ranks among all countries and territories with data.
Source: FAO, Land, Inputs and Sustainability: Fertilizers by Nutrient, via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0). Cropland = arable land plus permanent crops. Converted from per hectare to per acre (1 acre = 0.4047 hectare).
Pakistan sits above the world average and above the United States, and within a few kilograms of the United Kingdom. If low application were the binding constraint, the countries below Pakistan on this chart would be the ones with a yield problem. They are not. So the question is what happens to the nutrient after it goes on the field.
Note where India sits. It is the heaviest applier in this comparison, and it is not the target, for reasons set out in the next section.
A nitrogen habit, not a nutrition plan.
Crops do not eat one nutrient. Pakistan very nearly feeds them one. Share of total nutrient applied, Pakistan against India. The nearest large neighbour growing comparable crops on comparable soils.
What the nutrient actually consists of, 2023
share of total nutrient applied · hover a segmentSource · FAOSTAT, Fertilizers by Nutrient, via Our World in Data (2023). Ratios derived. Potash is 0.94% of nutrient use in Pakistan and 6.13% in India.
Potash builds cell walls, moves sugar, runs the plant’s water economy and is most of what stands between a crop and lodging, heat or drought. Pakistan applies 83 tonnes of nitrogen for every 1 tonne of potash. Sulfur, magnesium, zinc and boron sit outside this chart entirely, because at national level they barely register. A crop given that ratio grows fast, soft and vulnerable, and then cannot convert the nitrogen it was given.
POTASH AGAINST NITROGEN
In 2023, Pakistan used 1.2 kg of potash for every 100 kg of nitrogen. The world used 34.1 kg.
This shows the balance of what goes on the field: how much potash (or phosphate) is applied alongside each 100 kg of nitrogen. A line near zero means almost all the nitrogen goes on without potash.
Source: Calculated from FAO nutrient use per area of cropland (potash or phosphate divided by nitrogen, times 100; the result is the same per acre or per hectare), via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0).
India is on this page as a warning, not as a model
India appears here because it is the nearest large neighbour farming comparable crops on comparable soils, not because its position is one to aim at. India is the heaviest applier per acre in section 1, and its own nutrient ratio has been repeatedly judged a policy failure at home. India’s Twelfth Five Year Plan called the design of its nutrient subsidy “seriously flawed” for distorting the balance between nutrients (Planning Commission of India, Twelfth Five Year Plan, Vol. II, para 12.37). The Comptroller and Auditor General found that between 2010-11 and 2013-14 urea consumption rose slightly while muriate of potash consumption fell sharply, as potash prices rose and urea’s did not (CAG of India, Report No. 16 of 2015). The retail price of a 45 kg bag of urea in India has been held at ₹242 since 1 March 2018 (Department of Fertilizers, Government of India).
The lesson is not to apply more like India. A distorted price signal buys volume and imbalance rather than conversion, and Pakistan is closer to that position than to escaping it.
More went on, less came back.
The 2 lines that matter, and they point in opposite directions.
More went on. Less came back.
1999-2000 → 2023-24
Nutrient applied and wheat yield, 1999-2000 → 2023-24
index, 2000 = 1002 published end points, index 2000 = 100 (derived). Each line is drawn straight between its 2 end points, no intermediate years are published here, and none are implied.
Source · Nutrient per hectare: World Bank AG.CON.FERT.ZS (FAO), 95.4 and 160.3 kg/ha. Yields: Pakistan Economic Survey Table 2.5 (2009-10 and 2024-25 editions); all-cereal yield World Bank AG.YLD.CREL.KG. Yields as published in kg/ha: wheat 2,491 and 3,264, rice 2,050 and 2,714, cotton lint 641 and 717, all cereals 2,404 and 3,634. Converted at 1 hectare = 2.471 acres and 40 kg = 1 maund. Ratio derived.
Yield per kilogram of nutrient applied. The change since 2000
yield in maunds an acre, 1999-2000 against 2023-24 · the last column is derived
| Crop | 1999-2000 | 2023-24 | Change | Per kg nutrient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat | 25.2 | 33.0 | +31% | −22% |
| Rice (cleaned basis) | 20.7 | 27.5 | +32% | −21% |
| Cotton (lint) | 6.5 | 7.3 | +12% | −33% |
| All cereals | 24.3 | 36.8 | +51% | −10% |
How this is calculated, and its limit
The per-kilogram column is derived: a yield index divided by a nutrient-per-acre index, 2000 = 100. It is a partial factor productivity indicator, not a nutrient balance. The direction holds. The exact magnitude does not, and we would not defend it to the decimal.
Yields rose. Nutrient use rose faster. Every major crop now returns less for each kilogram applied than it did at the turn of the century.
Source · Nutrient per hectare: World Bank AG.CON.FERT.ZS (FAO), 95.4 and 160.3 kg/ha. Yields: Pakistan Economic Survey Table 2.5 (2009-10 and 2024-25 editions); all-cereal yield World Bank AG.YLD.CREL.KG. Yields as published in kg/ha: wheat 2,491 and 3,264, rice 2,050 and 2,714, cotton lint 641 and 717, all cereals 2,404 and 3,634. Converted at 1 hectare = 2.471 acres and 40 kg = 1 maund. Ratio derived.
GRAIN PER KG OF FERTILIZER
In 2023, Pakistan got about 23 kg of cereal grain for each kg of fertilizer nutrient it used. The world got 36 kg.
A rough measure of what fertilizer gives back: cereal yield per acre (in kg) divided by fertilizer nutrient used per acre of all cropland. The answer is the same whether worked per acre or per hectare. It is an indicator, not a crop trial. Countries using very little fertilizer show very high values, so the scale is stretched: 10 to 100 takes the same space as 100 to 1,000.
Source: Calculated from FAO cereal yield and FAO fertilizer nutrient use per area of cropland, via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0).
The loss nobody invoices for.
NITROGEN IN THE HARVEST
In 2014, 26.7% of the nitrogen added to Pakistan's cropland came out in the harvested crop. India: 34.3%. So about 73 of every 100 kg added was not removed in the harvest.
Of all nitrogen added to cropland (fertilizer, manure, fixation by legumes, rain and dust), the share removed in the harvested crop. The rest stays in crop residue or the soil, or is lost to air and water. Modelled series, ends 2014, and has no world figure. These charts show association, not the effect of fertilizer: seed, irrigation, varieties and weather changed over the same years. The yield response to N or P can only be measured in field trials.
Source: Lassaletta, Billen, Grizzetti, Anglade and Garnier (2014), Environmental Research Letters 9:105011, via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0). A share, so it is the same per acre or per hectare.
About 27% of the nitrogen added to Pakistan’s cropland came out in the harvest (2014). The United States converts about 72% of its nitrogen. The rest of ours leaves as ammonia gas, drains past the root zone as nitrate, or is lost to denitrification. The farmer pays for that nitrogen at the depot and the crop never gets it.
Source · Lassaletta, Billen, Grizzetti, Anglade & Garnier (2014), Environmental Research Letters 9:105011. Corroborated by Shahzad et al. (2019), Nature Sustainability., which places Pakistan at the lowest partial factor productivity and the highest nitrogen surplus in its comparison set.
You pay for the whole bag. About a quarter of the nitrogen in it feeds the crop.
Across Pakistan's cropland, roughly 1 kg of applied nitrogen in 4 is taken up by the crop. In the United States it is about 72 in 100. The rest of ours leaves as ammonia gas, drains past the roots as nitrate, or goes to gas in waterlogged ground. The farmer pays for that nitrogen at the depot and the crop never gets it.
Source · Lassaletta, Billen, Grizzetti, Anglade & Garnier (2014), Environmental Research Letters 9:105011. Corroborated by Shahzad et al. (2019), Nature Sustainability.
Why it goes
Above pH 8, and about 69 in every 100 of Punjab's samples are above pH 8, urea left on the surface turns to ammonia and leaves before a root can reach it. Calcareous ground binds phosphate with free calcium and takes most of it back. The same alkalinity locks up zinc.
The soil, measured 770,160 times →Where it was placed, when it was split, whether the water followed it, and what it was mixed with. None of that is printed on a bag, and it is where a large share of the loss happens.
We are not going to tell you how the quarter splits between those two. Nobody has measured that for Pakistan, VAN included, and a number invented for the sake of a tidy page is worse than no number.
What you can do, in the order it costs you
- 1Change the form.A coated urea releases over days instead of all at once on a hot surface. This is the rung that costs money, and it is deliberately first only because it is the largest.
- 2If you cannot change the product, change the method.Placed in the band, drilled at sowing, or side-dressed and watered in, the same bag puts more of its nitrogen into the crop than it does broadcast on a dry alkaline surface. The bag and the price are the same. Only the placement changes. VAN publishes no figure for how much more, because it has not measured one in a trial it can name.The same holds for phosphate, DAP included: the closer it goes to the root, the less of it the soil locks up before the root arrives.The 5 methods, and what each one does →
- 3If you irrigate through the line, level the field first.On unlevelled ground the water, and everything dissolved in it, reaches the low end of the field first and the high end last or not at all. Fertigation spreads the nutrient more evenly once the ground is level, and the levelling is doing part of that work, not the fertigation alone. No figure is put on it here, because VAN has not measured one in a trial it can name.
- 4Change the moment. Split it, and follow the water.Nitrogen given in one early dose sits on the field waiting to be lost. Split against the crop's own demand and follow the irrigation with it.
- 5Build the tank mix properly.A correct mix for foliar and fertigation drives uptake in its own right. 4 rules carry most of it.Fill the tank half full first, and keep the agitator running. Products go in one at a time, each one dispersed before the next arrives. Adding to an empty tank, or all at once, is how a mix curdles.Add in order of how hard each one is to disperse: wettable powders, then water-dispersible granules, then suspensions and flowables, then anything already in solution, then emulsifiable concentrates, and adjuvants and surfactants last of all.Jar-test anything you have not mixed before. The same products in the same order, at the same ratio, in a clear jar. Leave it 15 minutes. Curdling, flakes, a layer on top or sludge at the bottom means it will do the same in a 200-litre tank, and you will find out with a blocked boom.Spray it the day you mix it, and not into the middle of the day. A mix left standing separates, and a leaf takes far less in heat with the stomata shut. Early morning or late afternoon.This is general spray practice, not a VAN compatibility chart. Which VAN products must not share a tank, at what concentration, and what your own water does to them are answered product by product by the agronomy team, and in full for partners.
3 of those rungs cost nothing. A farmer who buys not one extra bag and only moves where and when he puts the one he has is already ahead. That is the point of publishing this.
Why Pakistani conditions make it worse
This is soil chemistry, not farmer error. Urea applied to a surface above pH 8, which is most cultivated ground in this country, hydrolyses rapidly and escapes as ammonia before it can be taken up. What survives nitrifies to nitrate, which is mobile and leaves with the irrigation water. In waterlogged ground the remainder denitrifies to gas. Meanwhile the same alkalinity locks up phosphorus and zinc as calcium and carbonate compounds the root cannot reach. High pH is therefore doing 2 kinds of damage at once: it wastes the nitrogen that is applied, and it withholds the nutrients that already are.
The soil underneath these numbers.
In Punjab, that sentence is measured rather than assumed. Across 770,160 samples the province-weighted mean is pH 8.22. 7 samples in 10 sit above pH 8.0; the share below neutral is 979 samples out of 770,160.
Source · Punjab soil testing programme · 36 district workbooks · 770,160 valid samples · c. 2016–2018. 770,160 samples across 36 districts; conditions, not mechanism. Read this before quoting ›
Other countries have raised how much of their nutrient reaches the crop.
Several countries have moved it, in different ways, at different scales. India is not among them.
6.1 · Rice, and the neighbour that should worry us
One crop, grown across the same region, measured one way: how much rice each kilogram of nitrogen produces.
Paddy produced per kilogram of nitrogen applied to rice
kg of paddy per kg NSource · N rates: IFA Fertilizer Use by Crop 2017/18, via Ludemann, Gruère, Heffer & Dobermann (2022), Scientific Data 9. Paddy yields: FAOSTAT via Our World in Data (2023). Farm size: PBS 7th Agricultural Census 2024 (Pakistan); BBS Agricultural Census 2019 via FAO WCA-2020 (Bangladesh). Paddy per kg N derived. Published per hectare (N applied, kg/ha: Bangladesh 91.8, Vietnam 127.6, China 177.6, Pakistan 120.6, Thailand 92.5, India 135.4; paddy, t/ha: 5.21, 6.11, 7.14, 4.07, 2.99, 4.31) and converted at 1 hectare = 2.471 acres, 40 kg = 1 maund.
| Country | N applied to rice | Paddy yield | Paddy per kg N | Avg farm size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bangladesh | 37.2 kg/acre | 52.7 maunds/acre | 56.8 kg | 1.29 acres |
| Vietnam | 51.6 kg/acre | 61.8 maunds/acre | 47.9 kg | n/a |
| China | 71.9 kg/acre | 72.2 maunds/acre | 40.2 kg | n/a |
| Pakistan | 48.8 kg/acre | 41.2 maunds/acre | 33.7 kg | 5.3 acres |
| Thailand | 37.4 kg/acre | 30.3 maunds/acre | 32.3 kg | n/a |
| India | 54.8 kg/acre | 43.6 maunds/acre | 31.8 kg | n/a |
Bangladesh grows 68% more rice per kilogram of nitrogen than Pakistan, on farms averaging 1.29 acres against Pakistan’s 5.3. India sits below Pakistan.
What this comparison can and cannot carry. Nitrogen rates are survey estimates for the 2017/18 season; paddy yields are 2023. Recalculating both on a same-year 2018 basis changes the values but not the ranking. Bangladesh and Vietnam still convert nitrogen into rice better than Pakistan, and India still sits below us. Myanmar is excluded: it applies almost no nitrogen at all, which produces a flattering ratio and a poor harvest, and it is not a model for anything.
Bangladesh is the uncomfortable case, and the useful one. Smaller farms, less capital, the same monsoon, and its paddy yield rose from 34.4 to 52.7 maunds an acre since 2000 (3.40 to 5.21 t/ha, FAOSTAT) while using less nitrogen per acre than Pakistan. Nothing about that is explained by money or land. It is explained by balance, variety and how nutrient is delivered.
6.2 · Decoupling at national scale
China
Cut total nutrient use 22.6% between 2014 and 2023 and still raised cereal yield 8.9%. Its national programme to halt growth in fertilizer use took effect in 2015. The year the 2 lines separate. China’s own measured nutrient utilisation rate on rice, wheat and maize rose from 35.2% in 2015 to 42.6% in 2024.
United States
Raised cereal production 35% between 2000 and 2023 on a fertilizer use that rose about 1%. Nutrient productivity 20.8 → 27.8 kg of cereal per kg of nutrient. 2.5 times Pakistan’s.
Feeding the whole nutrient basket instead of pushing nitrogen. Soil-test-based, crop-specific formulations rather than one blend for everything.
The same nutrient, more of it reaching the plant. China’s own measured utilisation rate, 35.2% (2015) to 42.6% (2024).
Splitting and timing applications to the crop’s demand curve instead of front-loading the season.
Deep placement, banding and fertigation in place of surface broadcast. Putting nutrient where the root is rather than where the loss is.
The part we will not overstate. China still applies roughly 2.5 times as much nutrient per acre as Pakistan, 159 against 65 kg an acre of arable land in 2023 (World Bank, published as 394 and 160 kg/ha). This is an argument about conversion, not volume. China’s own use peaked in 2014, the year before its programme was issued, so the policy consolidated a turn already under way rather than causing it single-handedly.
Source · World Bank AG.PRD.CREL.MT and AG.YLD.CREL.KG (FAO); FAOSTAT nutrient use via Our World in Data. Nutrient utilisation rate: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China, January 2021 and January 2025. Ratios derived.
The half of the problem nobody buys.
A bag is not a dose. The same nutrient, in the same quantity, does different things depending on the form it is in, the moment it is given, and the way it is placed. Surface-broadcast urea on hot alkaline ground volatilises; the identical nitrogen in a coated form is released over days, so less of it is exposed at any one moment. A micronutrient sprayed at the wrong growth stage is an expense; the same spray at the right stage is a yield.
Pakistan buys fertilizer by the bag and by the nutrient percentage printed on it. Almost nothing in that purchase describes when, how or in what form it will be delivered, which is where most of the loss happens.
How application changes the answer. The 5 methods →5 gaps, and what each one actually requires.
Every product below is released through VAN’s own PNAC-accredited laboratory. 20 of the 23 brands also hold a live PSQCA manufacturing licence; the other 3 say on their own pages why they do not.
| The gap | What it requires | What we make |
|---|---|---|
| Balance | Potash, sulfur, magnesium, calcium and micronutrients treated as part of the plan rather than an afterthought | Vital Potash · SOP · Green Sulfur · V-Mag Essential · Cala-Mag V · V-Zinc · VL-Boron · VL-Micromix |
| Nitrogen loss | Nitrogen held in the soil long enough for the crop to reach it, on ground where plain urea volatilises | Vital Urea. Sulfur-coated, patented, released over 3 to 18 days after the first irrigation, 7 to 8 typical |
| Locked phosphorus and zinc | Local, temporary acidification at the root zone, which may help phosphorus and zinc that alkaline soil has bound | The sulfur coating on Vital Urea · Green Sulfur · Humi Grow · V-Transform |
| Stage mismatch | A programme that says what to apply, at which growth stage, at what rate, not a single bag for a whole season | 28 published crop nutrition plans, stage by stage |
| Delivery | Forms that suit how the nutrient is actually going out. Fertigated, foliar, drone, broadcast, side-dressed | Water-soluble, liquid and foliar grades across the range |
How to read the evidence on this page.
Everything in sections 1 to 6 is national data from public sources. It establishes the problem. The evidence for VAN’s own answer is set out separately.
What is independently established: that coated and controlled-release nitrogen reduces losses and improves nitrogen recovery against uncoated urea, and that elemental sulfur raises phosphorus availability in calcareous soil. Both are peer-reviewed findings about the technology, not measurements of our product.
What we have of our own: a replicated field trial at VAN’s trial station, spring 2024, published in 2025, in which 2 stage-timed applications of sulfur-coated urea outperformed a 5-application conventional urea and CAN programme on maize. We cite that finding as the paper states it.
Where the trials stand: each product page prints the trial it has, and only that. If you need trial data for a specific product before you buy it, ask. Where a trial exists, you will get it.
Umair, A., Manzoor, M., Saleem, M. S., Akram, S., Ali, M., Batool, A., Javaid, T., Javaid, A., Sharif, M. N. & Haider, M. S. (2025). Efficacy Evaluation of Different Doses of Nitrogenous Fertilizers on the Growth and Yield of Maize (Zea mays). Planta Animalia 4(3), 129–135. DOI 10.71454/PA.004.03.0126.
Randomised complete block design, 3 replications, DK-6321 hybrid, VAN’s trial station, spring 2024.
Vital Urea. The evidence in full →Every figure, its source, its year.
| Figure | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Fertilizer use per hectare of cropland | Our World in Data / FAO | 2023 data, 2025 release |
| Nutrient use per hectare of arable land | World Bank AG.CON.FERT.ZS (FAO source) | 1999-2000 and 2023-24 |
| N, P₂O₅, K₂O tonnages | FAOSTAT Fertilizers by Nutrient, via Our World in Data | 2023 |
| Crop yields | Pakistan Economic Survey Table 2.5 (2009-10 and 2024-25 editions) | 1999-2000 and 2023-24 |
| All-cereal yield and production | World Bank AG.YLD.CREL.KG · AG.PRD.CREL.MT (FAO) | 2000–2023 |
| Nitrogen use efficiency | Lassaletta et al., Environmental Research Letters 9:105011 | 2014 |
| Nitrogen surplus, partial factor productivity | Shahzad et al., Nature Sustainability | 2019 |
| India. Nutrient subsidy design | Planning Commission of India, Twelfth Five Year Plan, Vol. II, para 12.37 | 2013 |
| India. Urea vs potash consumption | Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Report No. 16 of 2015 | 2015 |
| India. Urea retail price | Department of Fertilizers, Government of India | held since 2018 |
| Sulfur-coated urea field trial | Umair et al., Planta Animalia 4(3) 129–135 | 2025 |
| Punjab soil survey | Punjab soil testing programme · 36 district workbooks · 770,160 valid samples · c. 2016–2018 | c. 2016–2018 |
Figures marked derived are our arithmetic on the published inputs shown, not published figures in themselves. Where 2 series use different denominators, cropland in section 1, arable land in sections 3 and 6, we say so rather than presenting them as the same measure.
Have a question the charts don’t answer?
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