THE overall fertiliser off-take during the just-ended Kharif season rose by 27 per cent, enabling the country to achieve targets of leading seasonal crops including sugarcane, rice and maize, according to official statistics.

The total urea off-take during Kharif was estimated at 3.52 million tonnes, around 30pc higher than a year ago. The off-take of diammonium phosphate (DAP) was expected to increase by 13.3pc year-on-year to 790,000 tonnes. There was also a significant increase in the off-take of potash fertilisers.

According to data of the National Fertilisers Development Centre of the Planning Commission, the highest use of fertiliser (including urea, DAP and potash) during April-September Kharif season was in Punjab at 2.84m tonnes, followed by 1,142m tonnes in Sindh, 196,000 tonnes Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 156,000 tonnes in Balochistan .

SALES in RABI: Urea consumption is estimated to increase by 11pc to 3.2m tonnes in Rabi 2017-18, whereas DAP off-take is expected to stay flat.

The total off-take of all fertilisers in the coming Rabi season is forecast to rise by around 7pc to 4.84m tonnes.

Rabi season is expected to start with inventory of 730,000 tonnes of urea. The total availability of urea will be about 3.63m tonnes, comprising 730,000 tonnes of opening balance and 2.9m tonnes of domestic production.

AGRICULTURAL CREDIT: Five major commercial banks as a group disbursed agricultural loans of Rs342 billion in the previous fiscal year, a year-on-year rise of 9.9pc. The amount was a little higher than the targeted Rs340bn.

Among the specialised banks, Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd disbursed Rs92.5bn, or 90.2pc of its annual target, 15 domestic private banks collectively disbursed Rs139.1bn (99.6pc), and 10 microfinance banks surpassed their annual targets of Rs87.8bn by disbursing Rs60.1bn.

Likewise, four Islamic banks as a group also surpassed their annual targets of Rs11bn by disbursing Rs12.3bn during the period.

SUGARCANE: During the 2016-17 Kharif, sugarcane was cultivated on 1.217m hectares, an increase of 7.6pc over last year, and its production increased more than 15pc to 75.48m tonnes. The increase in area, yield and production has been observed this year too, according to ministry’s document.

RICE: Its countrywide production increased by 0.7pc to 6.849m tonnes, according to estimates released by the provincial agricultural departments. However, the area under cultivation decreased by 0.56pc over the last year.

MAIZE: Its production stood at 6.134m tonnes this year against the target of 4.607m tonnes. After wheat and rice, maize is the third important cereal crop which contributes 2.7pc to the value-added in agriculture and 0.5pc to GDP. During 2016-17, maize was cultivated on an area of 1.35m hectares.

MOONG: Its production during the 2016-17 Kharif season was 130,200 tonnes with an average yield of 728 kilograms per hectare. The area and production increased by 22.2 and 27.5pc, respectively, over the last year.

MASH: Its production declined by around 5pc this year as a result of an 11pc decline in area under cultivation.

According to the estimates of provincial agricultural departments, mash production in the country during 2016-17 was 7,200 tonnes and it was grown in all the four provinces on an area of 17,100 hectares.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 16th, 2017