Now, farmers claim shortage of urea for wheat crop

Close on the heels of shortage of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) faced by the farmers last month, they are now staring at a shortage of urea, which is to be applied on the wheat sown on 35 lakh hectares in Punjab.

While urea is easily available to farmers affiliated to Primary Agricultural Credit Societies, those not affiliated to the societies and dependent on private traders for their urea requirements are facing a shortage.

This is because 60 per cent of the urea that arrives in the state is allocated to the PACS and 40 per cent to private traders. However, farmers having just 35-40 per cent of cultivable land are members of these Credit Societies.

According to the information available with The Tribune, Punjab needs 5 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of urea for this rabi marketing season. So far, 3.6 LMT of urea has already landed in the state. Of this, 3.25 LMT was allocated in December itself.

“The allocation by the Centre is done month-wise and we are confident that there will be no shortage of urea in this season with the remaining demand being supplied in January,” said a senior government official, overseeing fertiliser arrivals in Punjab.

But farmers, once bitten, twice shy, after having faced a shortage of DAP last month, have started hoarding urea. As against the demand of 5.5 LMT of DAP, Punjab got just 3.75 LMT of DAP this year.

Farmers are not buying the urea as per their immediate demand for this month, but have resorted to buying the entire stock of urea they will need for the entire rabi crop growing season. Urea is to be applied for the first time after 25 days of sowing of wheat and the second dose is given 10 days thereon.

Also, since wheat sowing was delayed in many parts of the state because of late paddy harvest, farmers are using more than the recommended doses of urea to ensure that the wheat crop grows well and gives them a bumper harvest. “As against the recommendation to apply two bags of urea per acre, farmers are applying 5-6 bags of urea,” said a farmer in Barowal village of Mansa, requesting not to be named.

Gurbakshish Singh, a farmer from Nabha, said farmers not affiliated with PACS are being forced by private traders to buy one bottle of nano urea with every two bags of urea. “The government says that tagging of items with fertilisers will not be tolerated, but the private traders are blatantly doing it and in spite of the state government advising farmers not to use nano urea because of concerns over its efficacy. At many places, farmers are also forced to buy sulphur, compost, weedicides/ herbicides for wheat if they have to purchase urea from open market,” he alleged.

Gokal Prakash Gupta, general secretary of Agri Input Dealers Association, Punjab, said that there was a shortage of urea with private traders. “It is not the private traders who are tagging other items with urea for sale, but wholesale suppliers and urea manufacturers force retailers to sell the urea with tagged products,” he alleged.