Staff Reporter :
The marginal farmers of the country are not getting due benefits because of indecisiveness of the Ministry of Agriculture in dealing with shortage of fertilizer supply in the country.
In the wake of a low supply of fertilizer compared to the demand, farmers have to purchase the agri-input at a price of taka 400 to 500 per bag.
Sources concerned said due to a lack of supervision by the Ministry of Agriculture in the sale of fertilizer at the farmer level, subsidized fertilizer is being sold at high prices. The supply of non-urea fertilizer is low compared to the demand.
The government is providing a subsidy of taka 25 to 30 thousand crore on fertilizer imports every year, but farmers are not getting the benefits of it.
In the districts of Chapainawabganj, Rajshahi, Bogra, Rangpur, and Dinajpur regions, dealers are selling fertilizer at a price of taka 400 to 500 taka per bag, ignoring the price fixed by the government.
Farmers complain that fertilizer is not available with many fertilizer dealers. They have to succumb to high charging price of Taka 1300 to 1400 for DAP fertilizer, which is priced at Taka 1050 by the government.
The Ministry of Agriculture has given permission to BADC to import 2.2 million tons of fertilizer per season. Although the capacity of BADC’s godowns across the country, including Chittagong, Khulna, Narayanganj, Noapara, and Nagarbari, is 2.7 million metric tons.
The BADC authorities ignore the rules and illegally exploit the profits by illegally importing 50,000 to 52,000 metric tons of fertilizer.
As there are no adequate government godowns in the country, the fertilizer is drying in the sun, getting wet in the rain and rotting in different places.
Another faction of the syndicate, the transport contractors, are again mixing the rotten fertilizer with good fertilizer in bags for making huge profits in collusion with the dishonest officials of the BADC and supplying it to the market. In this way, the marginal farmers are being cheated.
On November 19, 2024, during an exchange of views with the executive committee of the Bangladesh Agricultural Journalist Forum in the office of the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, the current Agriculture Secretary Dr. Mohammad Emdad Ullah Mian said that there is sufficient fertilizer stock in the country at the moment.
With the current stock of fertilizer, there will be no crisis until January 2025, he also said that the current stock can meet the demand for fertilizer in the upcoming March-April 2025. However, the reality at the field level is different from the statement of the Agriculture Secretary.
In most districts of North Bengal, the price of non-urea fertilizer is being sold at a higher price of taka 400 to 500 per bag.
In addition, in the eastern part of the country such as Manikganj, Narayanganj, Comilla, Chittagong, Bandarban, Khagrachari and Feni districts, the TSP fertilizer allocated in November 2024 has not yet been fully supplied to the dealer level due to the shortage in stock with the BADC.
Due to the shortage of TSP and DAP fertilizer in BADC’s warehouses, the General Manager (Fertilizer Management) has issued a letter extending the deadline for withdrawing fertilizer from the warehouse by 10 days. The BADC has taken such a decision due to the low stock of fertilizer.
If there is a shortage of fertilizer supply in December, Rabi and Boro crop production will be severely affected.
Due to insufficient stock of fertilizers in the buffer warehouse, dealers are not able to purchase fertilizers even after depositing money in advance. If fertilizers cannot be supplied to dealers on time, Robi crop cultivation at the field level will be disrupted and adverse reactions will arise among farmers.
