Bangladesh News

Facing crisis of urea fertiliser at the peak season for Boro cultivation, the farmers brought out processions and created blockade on the highways at different places, especially in the northern region.

Hundreds of vehicles remained stranded for about four hours on Rangpur-Lalmonirhat and Rangpur-Kurigram roads due to the blockade by the farmers.

While the farmers are demanding smooth supply of fertiliser, many dealers in those districts increased the price exorbitantly on the pretext of short supply, reports say.

Bangladesh Fertiliser Association (BFA), however, claims that there is no shortage of urea fertiliser in the country as nearly four lakh tonnes of urea is in stock.

“We have sufficient stock and supply of fertiliser and there is hardly any chance of a crisis till the end of January,” said BFA Chairman Kofiluddin Ahmed.

Asked about farmers’ agitation for fertiliser in different districts, the chairman said there might be some shortage of supply in remote areas as there was transport problem for more than three days during the Eid holidays.

Besides, the supply was hampered as the movement of trucks on the highways was slowed due to thick fog for the last couple of days in the northern districts, he said. He further said that the delivery of urea from the BCIC factory was hampered as the authority issued a circular asking every dealer to come at the factory gate for getting supply.

Earlier, dealers used to get supply by the transport agency through authorisation letter, Kofiluddin told The Daily Star last night. He demanded simplification of delivery system for smooth supply of fertiliser to remote areas.

He hoped that the problem of the fertiliser supply would be solved very soon as the delivery and transport started in full swing. He, however, expressed concern over the AL-led grand alliance’s blockade programme from today that may hinder the supply again.

Kofiluddin ruled out the allegation of price hike by a section of dealers at the district level saying that there is hardly any scope for enhancing the price abruptly as a price monitoring committee formed by the government is working at every upazila.

Thousands of people of Nabdiganj, Mahiganj, Kalabagan, Mirbag, Kalyani, Khansama, and Sahebganj yesterday took to the streets from 9:00am when the BCIC dealers stopped selling urea in the wake of the crisis.

They blocked Rangpur-Lalmonirhat and Rangpur-Kurigram roads for about four hours, keeping hundreds of vehicles stranded, reports our Rangpur correspondent.

A large number of police were deployed at Nabdiganj to clear the highways but they refrained from taking any action in the face of serious protests by the farmers.

At around 1:00pm, UNO of Pirgachha Zakir Hosen along with a large number of armed police went there and persuaded the agitating farmers to move away from the highway saying that he would take steps to realise their demand for supplying urea within 24 hours.

Failing to buy the required urea for about fifteen days, which was high time to apply the fertiliser in their potato fields, the farmers of the district have become frustrated.

About one lakh hectare of land in the district was used for potato cultivation this season. Many farmers said potato plants in their fields were becoming curly as they could not put urea to the fields even once whereas they would have to use it twice by this time.

Nurul Amin, a farmer of Nabdiganj, who cultivated potato on 10 acres of land, said plants on his fields were dying for want of urea as he could use only one bag of urea against the need of 20 bags during the last two weeks. Many other farmers in the area spoke about the same problem.

The farmers alleged that the local BCIC dealers were selling urea to the retailers instead of selling it directly to the farmers who had to buy it at about Tk 450 to 500 from the retailers.

Abul Kashem Patwari, proprietor of Patwari Fertiliser of Nabdiganj, said every dealer in the district on Friday got only 15 tonnes of urea against the allocation of 72 tonnes.

The BCIC dealers asked the district administration to release urea from the buffer stock from November but their request was not complied with, said a dealer seeking anonymity.

In the previous years the government supplied urea from the buffer stock from early September but this year the government ordered to supply it from December 3, he added.

Admitting ‘a gap’ between the supply and demand, Rangpur Deputy Commissioner Khandker Atiar said the problem would be solved in next two days as the government has enough urea in the buffer stock.

Urea crisis in Nilphamari district has taken a serious turn at the very outset of the Boro season, reports our Nilphamari correspondent.

The farmers now find it difficult to get even a bag of urea and the situation has threatened the current Boro and Rabi crops cultivation in the district.

BFA Nilphamari unit president Abdul Wahed said the allotment of urea for the 74 fertiliser dealers in the district for December was 5,476 tonnes but the BCIC authority has so far supplied only 3,330 tonnes.

The authorities were supposed to supply the remaining 2,146 tonne urea by the first week of January from Ghorashal fertiliser factory in Narsingdi district and Jamuna Fertiliser Factory in Jamalpur district but they failed.

The fertiliser dealers of the district also failed to procure fertiliser from Parbatipur buffer stock of Dinajpur district.

This correspondent who visited different fertiliser markets in the district, found that a 50 kg bag of urea was selling from Tk 400 to Tk 425 against the previous rate of Tk 295 to Tk 300.

AKM Sakhawat Hossain, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture Extension of Nilphamari said the dealers will start getting their allotment from the Parbatipur buffer stock in a couple of days.

But the BFA sources said it will be very difficult to solve the problem soon as the two major factories are unable to produce as per their usual target.

The government initiative to import fertiliser has also been delayed.

The government target of Boro cultivation this year is 74,830 hectares of land and that of Rabi cultivation is about 35,000 hectares in the district.