NEW DELHI, March 1 -- Governments are spending billions of dollars subsidizing fertilizers that are increasingly delivering limited productivity gains while contributing to environmental damage, prompting the World Bank to push countries, including India, to rethink how agricultural support is designed.

In an interview, World Bank Group's global environment director Valerie Hickey said around 14% of global agricultural subsidies are directly linked to deforestation. In many countries, including India and Zambia, traditionally, a large part of subsidies in the agriculture sector was for the provision of inputs such as fertilizers, according to Hickey.

She added that global agricultural subsidies amount to nearly $2 billion a day, but a s...