Pakistan: Urea crisis continues to loom over agri sector

Islamabad [Pakistan], February 6 (ANI): Pakistan has started the month of February with the lowest urea inventory in the last eight years, a mere 37,000 tonnes of stocks, local media reported.
January registered sales of 599,000 tonnes urea against the production of 565,000 tonnes. With the starting inventory of 71,000 tonnes in January, February is left with 37,000 tonnes only, Dawn reported citing JS Global report.
According to JS Global, the sale of diammonium phosphate (DAP) is expected to go up by 42 percent in January to 117,000 tonnes as compared to 82,000 tonnes last January.
"This is despite massive price increase. The price of DAP has increased by more than 150 pc from Rs 4,500 per bag last year to Rs 12,000 this year. It is heartening to see sales going up as it would greatly add to the wheat yield," Dawn quoted Muhammad Ramzan, a DAP dealer from Lahore as saying.
"However, the government needs to concentrate on urea imports and do so quickly because it is turning out to be poor man's fertiliser given the market volatility. First, the government promised import of 150,000 tonnes of urea when crisis hit a peak. Then it reduced it to 100,000 tonnes and has actually tendered for 50,000 tonnes. Even this 50,000 tonnes should help market if it comes in quickly. The February-March window -- when demand goes down because of agronomical cycle -- can be used to build stocks and improve opening inventory for the kharif season. Otherwise, the current crisis would spill into the next one as well and impact would be even worse," he warned.
Last month, scores of farmers in Pakistan's Punjab province alleged that the administration seemed busy suppressing the voice of the farmers by lodging fake cases against them whenever they tried to record their protest against the non-availability of urea.
Farmers in Punjab province's also staged a sit-in in front of the office of the Chishtian assistant commissioner (AC) to protest the shortage of urea. They stated that their wheat crops were ruined due to the non-availability of urea and the administration was not ready to take any measures, reported Dawn. (ANI)