Farmers in different states have protested against unavailability of fertilisers
Global rise in fertiliser prices due to shortage has dealt a severe blow to farmers across India, which is the second-largest importer of fertilisers. Many states have seen cultivators erupting in protest, even as the Centre dismissed news of low availability of fertilisers.
Dattaraye P Darekar from Vinchur village in Maharashtra is worried about his soybean and maize crops sown over four hectares (ha). Shopkeepers in his village have been talking of a fertiliser shortage.
“They are telling us (farmers) that in the next 15 days, there will be a shortage of urea and sulphate, and that the prices will increase further. That is the time when I will need these fertilisers for my crops,” he said.
He doesn’t have the money to purchase in advance and stock fertilisers, he said, and is waiting to make money from selling his onion crops first.
Fertiliser prices have risen nearly 30 per cent since the beginning of 2022, following last year’s 80 per cent surge. The rise was driven by factors like surging input costs, supply disruptions due to sanctions (Belarus and Russia) as well as export restrictions in China.
Darekar usually applies both sulphate and urea to his soyabean crops, he said, adding that this time, it seems like he won’t be left with urea. “I will instead use urea for the maize crop.”
The farmer is worried over the rocketing prices. The maximum retail price for a 50 kilogram bag of urea has been Rs 268 since 2018, according to experts. The difference between the farmer price and the cost of production of urea is borne by the government as a subsidy.
“The shopkeepers are saying the price will go up to Rs 400 for a 50kg bag of urea,” Darekar shared.
Some 500 km away in Adilabad district, cotton farmers have been facing a shortage of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) as well as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) fertilisers. They have reported to have been travelling to nearby districts of Maharashtra to procure these products. Cotton requires fertiliser application thrice during a crop cycle.
In Telangana’s Nagireddypally village, local farmer M Vittal said there has been a shortage of DAP for the last 15 days. He was able to buy DAP for his 2.4 ha cotton crop only on June 27 at Rs 1,000 more than the usual price.
The international prices of DAP have increased by about 65.66 per cent from $565 (Rs 44,645) per tonne in May, 2021 to $936 per tonne in May, 2022, according to the Centre’s monthly bulletin for May.
Urea prices have increased by about 94.09 per cent from $372 per tonne in May, 2021 to $722 per tonne in May, 2022. Urea production is based on natural gas, prices of which are closely related to international oil prices.
Sulphur prices have increased by about 138.8 per cent from $216 per tonne in May, 2021 to $516 per tonne in May, 2022.
The Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers has been maintaining that there is no shortage of fertilisers but different parts of the country have been reporting shortage.
A shortage in Karnataka’s Kodagu and Dharwad districts has affected agricultural activities at the time of sowing in June, according to media reports. There have been protests by farmers in different states, including Andhra Pradesh and Manipur, against the unavailability of fertilisers.
On June 27, 30 organisations, including the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), Kisan Swaraj, Jai Kisan Andolan, farmers’ federations and collectives as well as dozens of other individuals, including farmers, have sent an open letter to the Union minister and secretaries of agriculture and farmers’ welfare ministries as well as chemicals and fertilisers about the on-going fertiliser crisis.
The letter claimed that there is a serious availability crisis and, as a consequence, prices have shot up for many synthetic fertilisers, as Kharif season begins.
They experienced the crisis to an extent during the Rabi season of 2021-22 also, but the Russia-Ukraine war, which erupted after, made the situation worse.
For Kharif 2022, there is a requirement of 35.4 million tonnes (MT), of which 17.9 MT is urea, 5.8 MT is DAP, 6.3 MT is NPK, 1.9 MT is muriate of potash and 3.3 MT is single super phosphate. The closing stock on June 9, 2022 was 6.6 MT, 1.9 MT, 2.2 MT, .4 MT and 1.7 MT respectively.
Sales of urea, DAP and NPK made till June 9, 2022 were 3.9 MT, 1.2 MT and .8 MT respectively.
However, the stocks as of June are a little over their estimated requirement for the month, but T Sreeharsha from Rythu Swarjya Vedika, a non-profit working with farmers in Telangana, said that farmers are facing shortages also due to lack of proper rationing and distribution.
Apart from being the second-largest importer of fertilisers, India imports raw materials for domestic production such as natural gas to make urea and phosphoric acid to make DAP.
Fertiliser stocks have been declining for the past two years. The stock in September 2021 was 6.9 MT, for instance, compared to 2.5 MT in September 2018.
There is a policy uncertainty that the fertiliser industry is facing, experts said. “There is a lack of long-term clarity on the quantum of non-urea fertiliser subsidies and, as a result, fertiliser companies are unable to make long-term plans on production, imports and stocks,” the farmer organisations said in the letter.
The government has been taking ad-hoc short-term decisions on fertiliser subsidy season-wise, and even these decisions are not taken adequately in advance to allow the industry to forecast and plan sufficiently ahead, it added.
In efforts to control price rise, the government increased the nutrient-based subsidy rate for Kharif 2022.
The Centre’s fertiliser subsidy expenditure is likely to be in the range of Rs 2.10-2.30 lakh crore in the current financial year, the letter mentioned.
The budget estimate for the financial year 2022-23 was only Rs 1.05 lakh crore. This will be the highest ever expenditure on fertiliser subsidy by a wide margin, the experts added.
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