Fertilizers & Agricultural Chemicals Data: From Farm-Gate Bags to Global Nutrient Balances · Head-to-head
Our World in Data — Fertilizers vs Dataful — Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets (India)
Which fertilizers & agricultural chemicals data: from farm-gate bags to global nutrient balances data fits your job: Our World in Data — Fertilizers, or Dataful — Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Our World in Data — Fertilizers
Dataful — Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets (India)
Where the fields line up
No shared field names. These two answer different questions.
| Field | Our World in Data — Fertilizers | Dataful — Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets |
|---|---|---|
Entity | Country, region or world aggregate the row describes. | not in this set |
Code | ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code; left empty on regional and world aggregate rows. | not in this set |
Year | Calendar year of the observation; the flagship consumption charts run 1961 through 2023. | not in this set |
Measure column (named per chart) | The chart's subject quantity - on the flagship total-use chart it reads "All fertilizers use" in tonnes of fertilizer applied, combining synthetic nitrogen, phosphate and potash with organic nitrogen inputs. | not in this set |
fiscal_year | not in this set | Indian fiscal year the observation refers to, April to March, used on the annual subsidy, rates, production and trade tables. |
time_period | not in this set | Reporting-period label used where the source reports date ranges rather than whole fiscal years - the enforcement-actions table works this way. |
state | not in this set | Geography the row refers to: 'All India' aggregate, or a named state on the state-broken-out enforcement table. |
category | not in this set | Measure the row reports: 'Subsidy Outgo' on the money tables, or an enforcement action type such as 'FIR Lodged', 'License Cancelled', 'Show Cause Notices Issued'. |
fertilizer_type | not in this set | Fertilizer the value applies to where the measure splits by product - Urea versus Phosphate & Potash (P&K) on the subsidy tables. |
value | not in this set | Numeric observation for the row's measure - subsidy in rupees crore, per-KG rates in rupees, production tonnage, or a count of enforcement actions. |
unit | not in this set | Unit of the value column, travelling on every row so rupees-crore totals and absolute counts never share an axis silently. |
note | not in this set | Free-text qualifier carried from the source - regime flags such as 'Under NBS regime', or a partial-year caveat on recent windows. |
Coverage, side by side
| Our World in Data — Fertilizers | Dataful — Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets | |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | `Entity` - country, region or world aggregate (Afghanistan, World), paired with `Code`, the OWID/ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, blank for aggregates | `state` - Indian state or the 'All India' aggregate (Andhra Pradesh) |
What each contains
Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| Our World in Data — Fertilizers | Dataful — Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets | |
|---|---|---|
| Geography key | `Entity` - country, region or world aggregate (Afghanistan, World), paired with `Code`, the OWID/ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, blank for aggregates | `state` - Indian state or the 'All India' aggregate (Andhra Pradesh) |
| Period label | `Year` - integer calendar year, 1961 to 2023 on the consumption charts | `fiscal_year` (2022-23) on subsidy and production tables, switching to `time_period` date ranges ('01.04.2025 to 28.11.2025') on enforcement rows |
| Measured value | Chart-specific measure column, e.g. 'All fertilizers use' = total fertilizer consumption in tonnes (synthetic N, P and K plus organic nitrogen) | `value` typed by `category` and `unit`: subsidy in 'Rupees Crores', enforcement counts in 'absolute number' |
| Measure identifier | None needed - the column header names the indicator, one measure per chart across 25 files | — |
| Unit declaration | Implicit - units live in each chart's companion metadata rather than a column | `unit` as an explicit per-row column ('value in Rupees Crores', 'value in absolute number') |
| Qualifiers | None - every observation is a clean country-year-measure cell | — |
| Code column | `Code`, ISO-style alpha-3, blank for regional and world aggregates | Absent - states and All India appear as text names only |
What each does better
Our World in Data — Fertilizers
Sixty years, everywhere. The consumption chart spans 1961 to 2023 for all countries and regions - 133-plus entities per chart, Afghanistan opening the file at 1,085 tonnes in 1961, Zimbabwe closing a verified sample at 105,379 tonnes in 2023 after peaking above 123,000 the year before. No India-only collection can frame a question about where nitrogen demand is heading.
It measures the agronomic debate actually used. Use per hectare of arable land, use per capita, nutrient-split production, nitrogen inputs to crops, eutrophying emissions per unit of food, excess application measured against yield gains, and the headline share of world population supported by synthetic nitrogen fertilizer - the Green Revolution's balance sheet rendered as twenty-five charts; see fertilizer consumption per hectare.
Provenance travels beside every number. Each chart ships companion metadata describing units, sources and processing, so a citation chain survives audit without archaeology - the reason it scores 8/10 rather than 7.
A shape analysts can parse blind. Four columns, long format, one indicator per file: Entity, Code, Year, value. It loads without a schema conversation.
Dataful's Chemicals & Fertilizers sector page
It owns the questions OWID cannot ask. How much did India spend on urea subsidy in 2022-23? A verified sample row answers directly: 168,677 rupees crore under the NBS regime, against 86,122 for P. What are the per-kilogram NBS rates by year? What did indigenous urea producers receive, company by company, from 2010-11 through 2025-26? Only this record knows.
That is administrative reality, not an international aggregate; see nutrient application rate.
Fiscal-year discipline. Series run 2000-01 to 2025-26 for subsidy disbursement, 2005-06 to 2025-26 for outgo, 2001-02 to 2023-24 for production of urea, DAP and complex fertilisers, 2016-17 to 2021-22 for chemicals trade and production - the native calendar of Indian budget documents rather than a calendar-year approximation.
Uniform tidiness across nine tables. Every listing is normalised into the same long format with explicit unit and note columns, so a warehouse load is one mapping exercise instead of nine.
The verdict
Verdict: sample both, pick by fit - they answer different questions about the same molecule.
Take Our World in Data — Fertilizers when the question is global or agronomic: which economies drive fertilizer demand, how per-hectare intensity ranks, whether yields track application, what share of humanity eats thanks to synthetic nitrogen. Accept a latest-year ceiling around 2023 and no sub-national detail anywhere.
Take Dataful — Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets (India) when the question is Indian and economic or regulatory: the subsidy bill's trajectory, NBS rate movements, producer payment flows, domestic output of urea, DAP and complexes, or enforcement pressure by state. Accept a hard geographic wall at India's borders and a start date no earlier than 2000-01.
If the question begins with 'where is nitrogen demand growing' - the globe. Many analysts keep both and let the question choose; see the best fertilizers & agricultural chemicals datasets ranking.
Sample both, pick by fit. See Our World in Data — Fertilizers · See Dataful — Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets
Fair questions
Is Our World in Data — Fertilizers better than Dataful's Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets?
Better at different jobs - 8/10 against 7/10 on the Datadory rubric. OWID wins the global question: 25 charts on total fertilizer use, production by nutrient, per-hectare intensity and nitrogen's role in feeding the world, all countries back to 1961. Dataful wins the Indian policy question: nine tables on urea subsidy outgo, NBS rates per kilogram, company-wise payments, production of urea, DAP and complexes, and state-level enforcement against black marketing through 2025-26.
Do the two field dictionaries share anything?
One column pair, essentially. Both reduce a record to a geography key, a period label and a numeric value - OWID as Entity / Year / measure in tonnes, Dataful as state or All India / fiscal_year or time_period / value in rupees crore or absolute count. Everything else diverges: OWID adds an ISO-style code column and fixes one measure per chart; Dataful adds category, fertilizer_type, unit and note columns because its nine tables carry several measures each.
Which covers more ground geographically?
OWID, without contest: FAOSTAT country, regional and world aggregates give it 133-plus entities per chart. Dataful is deliberately narrow - national aggregates plus state-level breakdowns for the enforcement-actions table, which alone runs to 656 rows across Indian states. If your question leaves India, only one of these can follow you.
Which reaches further forward in time?
Dataful runs fresher on its own turf: subsidy disbursement and outgo series extend through 2025-26, with partial-year enforcement rows already carrying periods like April to November 2025. OWID's consumption charts reach 2023, pinned to the latest FAOSTAT release cycle. Depth runs the other way - OWID starts in 1961, more than four decades before Dataful's earliest series in 2000-01.
Which should a fertilizer analyst sample first?
Sample both, pick by fit. Global screening - who consumes what, where nitrogen demand is growing, per-hectare intensity rankings - starts with [Our World in Data — Fertilizers](/datasets/fertilizers-agricultural-chemicals/our-world-in-data-fertilizers). India-specific economics - subsidy burden, NBS rate trajectories, urea and DAP production capacity, enforcement pressure - starts with [Dataful — Chemicals & Fertilizers sector datasets (India)](/datasets/fertilizers-agricultural-chemicals/dataful-chemicals-fertilizers-sector-datasets-india). Samples are cut to your countries and windows either way.
Can Datadory deliver both datasets together?
Yes. Either record arrives alone or merged onto one delivery calendar, normalized to its documented field dictionary with sample rows attached for validation - delivered daily, weekly, or hourly, your call. Or take both in one feed.