February 11, 2008	Monday	Safar 03, 1429

LAHORE, Feb 10: Farmers’ bodies on Sunday demanded formation of a national commission to probe causes of over 50 per cent drop in usage of fertiliser and 30 per cent reduction in production of cotton this year.

They claim that fertiliser usage, which has 35 per cent role in determining the final yield, has dropped drastically - around 40 per cent in case of DAP, 51 per cent potash and seven per cent in case of urea.

The cumulative effect in yield reduction can be suicidal when taken in the backdrop of 22 per cent water shortage and 10 per cent use of certified seed. The Rabi crops - wheat, grams, pulses, canola, rapeseed mustard and fodders - have a cumulative worth of Rs420 billion.

Such a reduction in usage of fertiliser will harm these crops and the country should get ready for massive import of agricultural and food items.

“The total land under these crops is around 25 million acre, which is 50 per cent of total cultivable area in the country,” says Bilal Isreal from Rahim Yar Khan. One must not forget that reduction noted above is in Rabi crops only, which are only six-month crops.

Detailing the reduction, he says the DAP usage, which stood at 24.9 million bags during the 2006-07 Rabi season, has dropped to 15 million bags this Rabi - a whopping cut of 40 per cent.

“The price factor has caused the reduction.”

A 50kg bag of DAP, which was sold for Rs925 in January last year, went up to Rs2,150 by the end of 2007. In the first week of February alone, the rate has gone up another Rs200, taking the price to Rs2,350 per bag.

With this kind of steep increase in DAP price, one can well imagine how can cash-starved farmers use this kind of fertiliser, he maintains.

“It is not only drop in DAP, but Potash fertiliser also narrates the same story,” says Rao Afsar from Rajanpur. It has experienced the biggest drop as far as volume is concerned. During the Rabi season 2006-07, the usage was around 380,000 bags, which dropped to 180,000 bags this year, registering a drop of 52 per cent. The DAP and Potash fertilisers are jointly responsible for the increasing final Rabi yield. With a combined reduction of 92 per cent in their usage, one can calculate what kind of effects it will have on the final yield of these crops, he says.

“As if all this was not enough,” says Rana Majid Zafar of Faisalabad, the usage of urea that is mainly responsible for the vegetative growth of all crops, has also dropped by seven percent - from 20.19 million bags in 2006-07 to 18.6 million bags.

“No one really knows for sure where the agriculture sector is heading for,” Rana Zafar says.

He says the donor-driven agenda has taken the heaviest toll on the sector, and the process has not stopped. Pakistan is the only country in the entire world where agriculture inputs are taxed, instead of subsidised.

The government must form a commission, which should determine what went wrong and fix the responsibility for reduction in fertiliser usage, says Ibrahim Mughal of the AgriForum Pakistan - which had convened a meeting of farmers to discuss the issue.

“Who allowed the private sector to make windfall profits by increasing prices of fertiliser almost on a weekly basis?”

The DAP price is an example, which has gone by almost 150 per cent in the last one year, and is still rising, Mughal says.

The commission should also be entrusted with the task of fixing responsibility for 30 per cent reduction in cotton yield.