Govt strengthens monitoring to thwart artificial fertiliser crisis: Razzaque

Agriculture Minister M Abdur Razzaque on Thursday said the government has intensified monitoring distribution of fertilisers to thwart any artificial crisis in the country.

The government has also increased prices of urea fertiliser by Tk 6 per kg against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war (that caused an exorbitant global inflation) the minister said, warning that authorities will take stern actions if anyone attempts to create an artificial crisis.

Earlier, the government had increased the maximum retail price for per kg urea to Tk 20 from Tk 14 at the dealer level while it was raised to Tk 22 from Tk 16 at the farmers’ level. And, the new rate has already been made effective from August 1.

The fertiliser price spiraled four times in the international market due to the adverse impact of the Russia-Ukraine war but the government did not hike the prices proportionately, he said.

At present, there is a sufficient stock of all kinds of fertilisers in the country to meet home demand, Razzaque said. He called upon the farmers to cut 20 percent use of urea to mitigate farming cost.

“Production in the agriculture sector will see no harm, rather it will increase if we can keep the use of urea at a rational level. Our farmers will have to be aware of using the urea,” he said.

He said the country’s current annual demand for non-urea fertiliser like TSP, DAP and MOP is over 32 lakh tonnes and the government imports all the varieties of the manure to meet the local demand.

The government’s subsidy per kg of urea was Tk 15, TSP Tk 2.53, MOP Tk 2.62 and DAP was Tk 5.50, respectively, in the 2005-06 fiscal year.

But in the current 2022-23 fiscal year, the subsidy for urea stood at Tk 59, TSP Tk 86, MOP Tk 91 and the subsidy per kg of DAP reached Tk 107, said the minister.

Amid the volatile world economy due to the pandemic of coronavirus and the Russia-Ukraine war, fertiliser prices went up worldwide abnormally, he said.

As a consequence, the government has to count Tk 81 as import cost for per kg of urea, Tk 108 for TSP, Tk 106 for MOP and Tk 123 for per kg of DAP, respectively, he pointed out.

The total amount of the government subsidy for fertilisers was Tk 7,717 crore in 2020-21 fiscal year and allocation has been raised to Tk 28,000 crore this fiscal year, he said.

Besides, the ministry sources said the country’s total demand for urea fertiliser for the Aman season is around 6,19,000 lakh tonnes while its current stock is around 7,27,000 tonnes.

The seasonal demand for TSP is 1,19,000 tonnes while its current stock is 3,09,000 tonnes, DAP’s demand is 2,25,000 tonnes but its stock is 6,34,000 tonnes and MOP’s demand is 1,37,000 tonnes as against its current stock of 2,10,000 tonnes.