June 19, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Sani 14, 1429

TOBA TEK SINGH, June 18: Pakistan Kisan Committee president Choudry Fateh Muhammad and Awami Jamhoori Party provincial secretary general advocate Rana Muhammad Azam have criticised the government for ignoring agriculture sector, especially the small farmers, in the proposed federal budget.

Addressing a joint press conference here on Wednesday at the district press club, they said though subsidy had been increased on DAP fertilizer but its price was not fixed.

They demanded the government should provide subsidy on all fertilizers and pesticides if it really wanted to help small farmers who were facing a crunch.

They said multinational companies had been given a free hand to fix the prices of fertilizers and pesticides they produced. They also said that in last few weeks, rates of many fertilizers had been increased by the manufacturers without any justification. Quoting examples, they said, TSP fertilizer which was available at Rs375 per bag was now being sold at Rs850 per bag, Nitrophos and Potassium fertilizers which were being sold at Rs850 per bag were now available at Rs2,200 per bag and the Urea fertilizer price had jumped from Rs450 per bag to Rs750.

They feared if the trend continued, small farmers would soon be unable to purchase fertilizers, having an adverse impact on per acre yield.