Late last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially launched ‘Urea Gold’ fertiliser. Developed by the state-owned Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Ltd (RCF), it is basically urea fortified with sulphur. Normal urea contains 46% of a single plant nutrient: Nitrogen or N. Urea Gold has 37% N plus 17% sulphur or S and aims at two things. The first is to deliver S along with N. Indian soils are deficient in S, which oilseeds and pulses – the country is significantly import-dependent in both – particularly require. The second is to improve the nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of urea. Coating of…