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 hectare than the world average and more than the United States. What has fallen is how much crop each kilogram of that nutrient produces. This page sets out the evidence, names every source, and gives the evidence for VAN’s own answer to it.
The first thing to establish, because almost every other conclusion depends on it.
Pakistan sits above the world average and above the United States, and within a few kilograms of the United Kingdom.
Source · Our World in Data / FAO (2025), fertilizer use per hectare of cropland.
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 not how much goes on the field. It is what happens to it after it does.
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.
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.
| Nitrogen | Phosphate | Potash | For every 1 tonne of potash | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pakistan | 3,808,775 t | 994,885 t | 45,735 t | 83 t N · 22 t P₂O₅ |
| India | 20,456,400 t | 8,306,600 t | 1,878,600 t | 11 t N · 4 t P₂O₅ |
Shares derived from the tonnages shown. Potash is 0.94% of nutrient use in Pakistan and 6.13% in India.
Source · FAOSTAT, Fertilizers by Nutrient, via Our World in Data (2023). Ratios derived.
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 eighty-three tonnes of nitrogen for every 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.
The two lines that matter, and they point in opposite directions.
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.
| Crop | Yield 1999-2000 | Yield 2023-24 | Yield change | Per kg of nutrient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat | 2,491 kg/ha | 3,264 kg/ha | +31% | −22% |
| Rice (cleaned basis) | 2,050 kg/ha | 2,714 kg/ha | +32% | −21% |
| Cotton (lint) | 641 kg/ha | 717 kg/ha | +12% | −33% |
| All cereals | 2,404 kg/ha | 3,634 kg/ha | +51% | −10% |
Source · Nutrient per hectare: World Bank AG.CON.FERT.ZS (FAO). Yields: Pakistan Economic Survey Table 2.5 (2009-10 and 2024-25 editions); all-cereal yield World Bank AG.YLD.CREL.KG. Ratio derived.
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 two kinds of damage at once: it wastes the nitrogen that is applied, and it withholds the nutrients that already are.
Conversion is a policy and practice variable, not a fact of geography. Several countries have moved it — in different ways, at different scales. India is not among them.
Take one crop, grown across the same region, and ask a single question: how much rice does each kilogram of nitrogen actually produce?
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.
| Country | N applied to rice | Paddy yield | Paddy per kg N | Average farm size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bangladesh | 91.8 kg/ha | 5.21 t/ha | 56.8 kg | 1.29 acres |
| Vietnam | 127.6 kg/ha | 6.11 t/ha | 47.9 kg | — |
| China | 177.6 kg/ha | 7.14 t/ha | 40.2 kg | — |
| Pakistan | 120.6 kg/ha | 4.07 t/ha | 33.7 kg | 5.3 acres |
| Thailand | 92.5 kg/ha | 2.99 t/ha | 32.3 kg | — |
| India | 135.4 kg/ha | 4.31 t/ha | 31.8 kg | — |
Source · 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.
Bangladesh is the uncomfortable case, and the useful one. Smaller farms, less capital, the same monsoon — and its paddy yield rose from 3.40 to 5.21 tonnes per hectare since 2000 while using less nitrogen per hectare than Pakistan. Nothing about that is explained by money or land. It is explained by balance, variety and how nutrient is delivered.
Pakistan and China tracked each other for a decade and were level in 2014. They then separated, and the gap has widened every year since.
| 2000 | 2014 | 2023 | Change 2014 → 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pakistan | 10.28 | 10.21 | 10.97 | +7.5% |
| China | 11.84 | 10.15 | 15.02 | +48.0% |
kg of cereal per kg of nutrient. Derived: cereal production ÷ total nutrient use. Points are plotted on a true time axis, so the uneven spacing of the sampled years is visible rather than hidden.
Source · Cereal production: World Bank AG.PRD.CREL.MT (FAO). Nutrient use: FAOSTAT Fertilizers by Nutrient via Our World in Data. Ratio derived.
Both measures indexed to 2014 = 100, so they sit on one axis and can be read against each other. From 2015 the two lines move in opposite directions and have not converged since.
| 2014 | 2023 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cereal production | 560.5 Mt | 641.7 Mt | +14.5% |
| Fertilizer nutrient use | 55.21 Mt | 42.72 Mt | −22.6% |
| Nutrient utilisation rate rice, wheat and maize | 35.2% (2015) | 42.6% (2024) | +7.4 points |
Source · Fertilizer use: FAOSTAT Fertilizers by Nutrient via Our World in Data. Cereal production: World Bank AG.PRD.CREL.MT (FAO). Nutrient utilisation rate: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China, January 2021 and January 2025. Indices derived.
Twelve and a half million tonnes of nutrient a year removed from the system, and eighty million tonnes more grain out of it. That did not come from a better fertilizer. It came from four things done together — and every one of them is a decision about how nutrient is used rather than how much is bought.
Feeding the whole nutrient basket instead of pushing nitrogen. Soil-test-based, crop-specific formulations rather than one blend for everything.
China's own measured nutrient utilisation rate on rice, wheat and maize rose from 35.2% in 2015 to 42.6% in 2024 — the same nutrient, more of it reaching the plant.
Splitting and timing applications to the crop's demand curve instead of front-loading the season, so nutrient arrives when the plant can take it up.
Deep placement, banding and fertigation in place of surface broadcast — putting nutrient where the root is rather than where the loss is.
The four levers above are the widely documented components of China's approach. The utilisation-rate figures are China's own official measurements; the rest is description, not a quantified claim, and we have not tried to attribute the 22.6% reduction between the four.
Source · World Bank AG.PRD.CREL.MT and AG.YLD.CREL.KG (FAO); FAOSTAT nutrient use via Our World in Data. Ratios derived.
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, released across the crop's demand curve, does not. 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.
Five gaps, and what each one actually requires. Every product below is registered with PSQCA and released through our own PNAC-accredited laboratory.
| 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 across 7–18 days |
| Locked phosphorus and zinc | Local, temporary acidification at the root zone to release what alkaline soil has bound | The sulfur coating on Vital Urea · Green Sulfur · the humic and fulvic range — 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 · application systems |
Everything in sections 1 to 5 is national data from public sources. It establishes the problem. The evidence for VAN’s own answer is set out separately, below.
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 two stage-timed applications of sulfur-coated urea outperformed a five-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.
| 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 |
Figures marked derived are our arithmetic on the published inputs shown, not published figures in themselves. Where two series use different denominators — cropland in section 1, arable land in sections 3 and 5 — we say so rather than presenting them as the same measure.
Not a wider catalogue. A nutrient basket that matches what the crop actually needs, in forms that survive Pakistani soil, on a programme that says when to apply them.
