Published: 12:01 AM, 26 October 2026
Why Not Urea Deep Placement in Rice Cultivation?
Dr. M Monir Uddin
Urea fertilizer is an essential and widely used chemical fertilizer for crop production worldwide. In 2025, 177-179 million tons of urea fertilizer were used for crop production worldwide. In 2025, about 3 million tons urea fertilizer were used in Bangladesh for the annual production of 60 million tons of paddy, of which 20-22 million tons of fertilizer were imported. The government imported this fertilizer at a cost of $379.50 to $418.33 per ton, meaning the government had to spend about 72,000 million taka to import 20-22 million tons of urea. We know that 70 percent of the urea fertilizer broadcasted in the traditional way is of no use to the crops, that is, it mixes with the environment through waste. However, there is a tested innovation for the efficient use of urea fertilizer in Bangladesh; Urea Super Granule (USG). By applying USG, we can reduce the wastage of urea fertilizer in the country by minimum 30 percent, which amounts to about 600,000 tons, and the import value of these 600,000 tons of urea fertilizer is about 2,000 million taka.
Urea deep placement or USG technology is a very important climate-smart agricultural method, especially in rice cultivation, which can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mainly methane and nitrous oxide, by 40 percent or more. It also increases nitrogen use efficiency by 90-95 percent and increases rice yield by 25-50 percent. After 7-10 days of rice seedlings transplantation in the field, one USG weighing 2.7 grams is used for every 4 paddy hills at a depth of 7-10 cm. In this, only 24 kg of USG is required for 1 bigha of land using the spacing 10 ? 6 inches and no second application of urea fertilizer is required in the field. The use of USG prevents rapid nitrification and therefore can reduce nitrous oxide emissions by 47-80 percent.
By placing USG in the soil, nitrogen is released very slowly, because of which the rice plant gets the nitrogen it needs for a long time. By using USG, the rice plant does not experience hidden hunger due to lack of nitrogen, but rather receives nitrogen as needed continuously, which improves the vegetative growth, which increases the number of effective tillers and panicles in the field, produces strong and long rice panicles, the number of rice in each panicle increases, the rice grains become healthier and bold, which ultimately plays a role in increasing yield. Due to the increase in the efficiency of USG, at least 30 percent less urea fertilizer is required in rice.
The success of Bangladesh's agriculture is largely due to the simple, hardworking farmers of the country. Even today, farmers produce crops by purchasing the necessary inputs for crop production without consuming them themselves. However, those farmers do not get a fair price for their agricultural products, and this is the current crucial picture of Bangladesh. The concerned departments or research institutes of the Ministry of Agriculture have written a few lines on the use of USG in their diaries or fertilizer recommendation guidelines, but in reality, they do not work to promote or expand USG anywhere in the country. From experience, it can be said that the reason for this is that if USG is used, there will be no seasonal crisis of urea fertilizer, and no one will gain personally as a result. However, if the country's farmers have good technology, they will maintain it themselves. In the case of USG, that evidence was also found by going to the farmers' fields and talking to the farmers.
At one time, IFDC implemented a project called Agro-Based Industries and Technology Development Project (ATDP) under the Ministry of Agriculture with funding from USAID for five years and this time was probably from 1995-2000. At that time, fertilizer dealers all over the country had briquette machines to make USG and they would get special allocation of urea fertilizer for making USG. Unfortunately, due to lack of supervision by the concerned department, most of the allocated urea fertilizer was not made into USG and was sold as prilled urea. As a result, despite the demand from farmers, the USG technology started to disappear after the project ended. Currently, USG are not available anywhere in the country and therefore farmers do not get the opportunity to use USG even though they are interested.
While this is the picture of USG across the country, a different picture was seen in Elenga Bazar. Farmers in this area have been using USG for many years. Due to the demand of farmers, some USG machines in Elenga Bazar are still in operation and farmers are buying USG for use in the fields. Talking to the farmers, it was learned that they have been using USG for many years and according to them, there are many advantages of using USG such as no hassle of buying fertilizer again and again, once used, there is no need to worry about fertilizer, less hassle and cost of weeding as there are fewer weeds, no need to use any herbicides, better rice yield.
Agriculture is a major source of GHG emissions in Bangladesh, accounting for about 39 percent of the country's total emissions. One of the main causes of these agricultural emissions is intensive rice cultivation, which contributed to 32 percent of GHG emissions in 2014-2015. Factors contributing to GHG emissions in rice farming include fertilizer management, use of high nitrogen fertilizers, and water retention in rice fields. It is estimated that GHG emissions from agriculture will reach 76.79 million tons by 2030 and increase to 100 million tons by 2050. Among the important things to do to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture are efficient management of nitrogen fertilizers, i.e., use of USG, and ensuring irrigation using alternate wetting and drying (AWD) methods.
Bangladesh has committed to significantly reduce GHG emissions through its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which aims to reduce GHG emissions by 20.31 percent below baseline levels by 2035, of which 6.39 percent is unconditional and 13.92 percent is conditional, i.e. with international assistance. One of the main ways to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture is to expand the use of USG, i.e. efficient management of nitrogen fertilizer. By expanding the use of USG in the country, in addition to reducing GHG emissions, a sustainable agricultural system will be developed, which will bring several benefits to the country, such as saving a huge amount of money due to reduced imports urea fertilizer, increasing rice yields by 25-50 percent, which will help ensure a sustainable food system in the context of the country's changing climate, and reducing GHG emissions to a large extent, which will enable the proper implementation of the government's commitment to reduce GHG emissions. During the paddy season, farmers have to buy urea fertilizer at a price of at least 100 taka more than the government-set price. Therefore, if we calculate it, the additional money that the farmer spends, along with the cost of importing additional urea, can be used to provide free USG to all paddy farmers under the government incentive. This will reduce the overall economic waste of the country, and at least 10 million tons of additional paddy will be produced in the country. Moreover, GHGs will be reduced.
It is a sad but extremely true fact that even though our farmers understand the benefits of USG technology, our government and the relevant departments still do not understand it. I would like to request the concerned authorities to see the picture of USG production in Elenga Bazar, Tangail, visit the USG usage field in the area, talk to the farmers using USG and make a decision. I appeal to the government's policy makers, agricultural experts and the relevant ministries that you should not think about the profits of any particular group but think about the farmers of the country, come up with a cost-effective plan for the country, make the use of USG technology mandatory in rice cultivation to build climate-friendly and sustainable agriculture and thereby play a role in ensuring the country's food security.
Dr. M Monir Uddin is an
agronomist. He can be reached at
