LAHORE: Two major Rabi crops wheat and potato may be affected as prices of Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) and urea fertilizers have shot up across Punjab discouraging their use by a majority of small farmers.

Both wheat and potato are fertilizer-intensive crops.

The DAP fertilizer, which is applies to the lands before sowing, is being sold in the market at rates ranging between Rs8,400 and Rs9,800 per bag across the province while its controlled rate is Rs7,300 per bag, claims Kissan Ittehad President Mian Umair.

Similarly, urea fertilizer is being sold in the black market at rates between Rs2,200 and Rs2,500 against its official rate of Rs1,760 per bag, he says.

Fearing that the higher prices of compost will further depress their use affecting the yield of the most important wheat crop and thus endangering national food security, he threatens to hold a protest demonstration in the provincial capital on Nov 25 if the government does not act against the black-marketing of the fertilizers.

Kissan Ittehad president threatens protest on 25th

The government is offering a Rs1,000 subsidy per DAP bag and each farmer is allowed to get the facility for 20 bags. Four bags per acre of DAP fertilizer are applied for potato crops, while the consumption ratio for the wheat crops is one and a half bag per acre.

Mian Umair says that the farmers are not getting even this ‘meagre’ subsidy amount due to various ‘procedural’ bottlenecks and they used to sell the subsidy vouchers to agents against around Rs300 per unit.

Despite the provision of subsidy, the sale of DAP fertilizer had already been depressed by 14 percent during the first eight months of 2021 mainly due to its exorbitant price, when it was selling for Rs6,500 per bag, as compared with the same period last year.

The Fertilizer Manufacturers of Pakistan Advisory Council urged Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Fakhr Imam that the government should double the subsidy to make DAP affordable to the farmers in view of the unprecedented price hike in rates of fertilizers and the Phos Acid and rock Phosphate in the international market.

It had also suggested that the subsidy should not be restricted to a limited number of bags rather it should be as per land holdings and recommended dose for a farmer.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2021