While the question of the agriculture sector’s fertilizer needs, specifically of DAP, is perennial, it gains additional importance in the wheat cultivation season in view of the crop being vital to food security in the country. Higher input of fertilizer is required for wheat because it is sown on a much larger area than any other crop.

Urea and DAP are the basic nourishment inputs for crops. The production of urea is sufficient in the country and the only thing restricting farmers from its proper use can be the cost. It however remains manageable, certainly far more within the farmer’s resources than DAP.

DAP is imported. One local factory produces the fertilizer but it was closed last year and has started production again this year. However, the quantity it produces is negligible and has no bearing whatsoever on the requirements of the agriculture sector; it is not even irrelevant for the wheat crop.

It is an investment for investors and interestingly, the price per bag from the factory is higher than imported DAP. The cost is admittedly only nominally higher but there is a difference and as a result, the local production serves only regular customers; it does not exist for an average farmer.

Its contribution can be assessed from the fact that Pakistan’s annual DAP requirement is two million metric tons while the factory’s output was 66,556 metric tones in 2001-02.

Output figures after resumption of production after a year’s closure are not available. However, as there has been no expansion in the unit, its production is unlikely to rise.

DAP is applied to all crops. Recommended input for wheat and sugar cane is however above other crops. The approved agronomic quantity is two bags of DAP per acre for both crops. For cotton and rice, it can be one to one and a half bags for the same land. This is a general estimate that by and large holds.

Farmers use both urea and DAP because a combination of the two is essential for the crop’s growth. Experts place the contribution of fertilizers to the crop’s need at 45 percent to 55 percent. The application of one fertilizer is not enough but there is no specific quantity rule. Both are equally vital inputs.

Complaints about non-availability of DAP in the market or availability at above market rates have started pouring in, as they regularly do around this time every year. The shortage is not natural; it is one of an organized rake-off operation. Delayed imports leave farmers to the mercy of importers and allow them to manipulate prices for personal profits. This proves detrimental to yields.

DAP is imported and, although consumption figures and actual agronomic requirements are worked out at both the federal and provincial levels, measures for ensuring on time imports go largely unattended with the result that there are shortages and price hike, to be exact, selling of DAP in the black market has become a recurrent phenomenon.

Wheat is sown on an area of about 20 million acres. Two bags of dap per acre of wheat crop is the correct quantity but that, costing over Rs. 1,800, is beyond the financial means of most farmers; small landowners are hard put to pay even for one bag. That has become, besides other management shortcomings of the wheat crop, a negative factor in the growth of its produce.

That, in fact, is true of all crops, major or minor. No effort has been made by any government to develop the production of DAP in Pakistan. Its import is a vested interest area like the import of palm oil that has disallowed edible oil crops. As a result, the import of DAP has become another drain on foreign exchange resources of the country, a bottleneck for raising yields of various crops and a source of easy money for well connected individuals and groups.

The case of DAP is admittedly not exactly like edible oil because raw material for producing DAP is not available in the country. However, backing an industry based on imported raw material would be an immensely more practical and beneficial policy than importing the stuff in finished form.

The quantity of DAP imported for the Rabi crop in 2001-02 was 0.528 million metric tons. As wheat is sown on about 80 percent of the cultivated area during this season, its consumption was higher than any other crop and stood at 0.422 million metric tons for the year.

Farmers seem to realize DAP’s contribution to yield and are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of DAP for boosting their produce; they have been enhancing its use in their crops. Statistics for DAP use in 2002-03 underline that trend. During the Rabi season in that period, 0.618 million metric tons of DAP was applied to the wheat crop.

Agronomists work out the total DAP requirements of Pakistan for all crops at two million metric tons per year. That would be the ideal input for obtaining higher yields from the agriculture sector. They however realize that given the scant financial resources of small farmers, achieving this level of application of DAP has to be ruled out. But the actual application is dismally low.

In 2001-02 the total DAP off-take stood at a mere 0.758 m metric tons was applied to crops in the Rabi season. That is obviously too low. High cost of the fertilizer plus non- availability of needed quantity at crucial stages of crops has consequently become an impediment in the ability of the sector to obtain the maximum potential from crops.

If the government wishes to obtain the maximum from the agriculture sector and boost produce to continue meeting food needs of the populace and providing more raw material for export-oriented industries based on agricultural produce, it must devise a long term policy for imports without wasting time.

In the meantime, the government should evolve a policy for backing the production of DAP in the country by offering duties, and sales tax incentives to investors to ensure that this vital output is available to farmers on time. Incentives would also help lower the price of DAP. In the absence of such a policy, the agriculture sector would continue to suffer.