Cooperative marketing society warehouse runs out of DAP

The woes of farmers are far from over as DAP continues to be unavailable for the sowing of rabi crops. Even though the fertiliser has not been available in Hisar for the past three days, farmers continue to wait for DAP bags in queues outside shops for hours.

While officials of the Agriculture Department maintained that the farmers should go for an alternative and use NPK bags, which were available, the farmers as well as agricultural experts differ on it.

Dr Ram Kumar, a former Director of Extension, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (HAU), said an NPK bag contained 16 kg of phosphorus while a bag of DAP contained 23 kg. As per the package and practices of rabi sowing, an acre of land required 24 kg of phosphorus for sowing wheat.

“Thus, one bag of NPK is not sufficient. Besides, the NPK bag costs Rs 50 more than a DAP bag,” he informed, adding that a DAP bag cost Rs 1,350 and would drastically increase the input costs.

He also said there could be a problem of availability of NPK if the farmers started purchasing it from the market. “In that case, there would be scarcity of NPK, too,” he maintained.

On Friday morning, at 4 am, several farmers gathered outside the Hisar Cooperative Marketing Society office in the new grain market to buy fertiliser. But the stock did not arrive till evening and the farmers had to return empty-handed.

The farmers from Deva, Dhansu, Mirzapur, Talwandi Rana, Kharkadi, Harita, Kalwas, Gangwa and Juglan reached the new grain market to buy fertiliser. They said they had been waiting for three days for DAP.

A notice has also been pasted outside the office of the marketing society, saying that DAP was not available. Sunder Lal, an accountant at the marketing society shop, said there was no fertiliser in the warehouse.

A farmer Ramphal from Dhansu village said he had been visiting Hisar daily for the past four days, but returned empty-handed every day.

Hazari Lal from Gangwa village, Satbir Saini from Kaimri village and many others said it was a huge disappointment for them.