CHENNAI: While sowing of long season sambha paddy has begun in about 3.13 lakh hectares, escalating prices of inputs, coupled with shortage in supply of fertilizers such as di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), have now resulted in sky-rocketing cultivation costs for farmers. Official sources said that while the requirement for October was estimated at about 70,000 tonnes of DAP, the allocation from the Centre, as on Tuesday, was just 37,300 tonnes. This was despite the State constantly taking up the issue of shortfall in supply with the Fertilizer Ministry. This assumes significance owing to the fact that it is used by farmers as a basal fertilizer and is essential at the beginning of the planting season. While 79,000 tonnes of urea has been garnered from local sources, officials said the Centre has not yet indicated on how the remaining 1 lakh tonnes of the total requirement would be supplied. Farmers, on the other hand, said the supply constraint was adding to the price pressure already caused by the change in subsidy format introduced in April 2010, when all non-urea fertilizers were brought under the Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) regime. This was also followed by the decontrol of prices of these fertilizers. Official data revealed that while the government-fixed price of DAP, just before the decontrolling in 2010, was about Rs. 486 per bag, the current price fixed by several companies was hovering around Rs. 910 per bag. Muriate of Phosphate (MoP), another popular fertilizer, has also shown a steep increase since NBS, with a bag currently sold at around Rs. 565 compared to Rs. 230 per bag in 2010. On the other hand, urea, the price of which is still under the control of the Centre, has gone up by just Rs. 17 per bag since 2010 and was now available at around Rs. 268 per bag. Shanmugam, General Secretary of the Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam, said that while fertilizer costs have gone up by over 100 per cent in certain cases since 2010, the corresponding hike in procurement price for the crop has been negligible. “The Centre has completely ignored Swaminathan Committee’s report that the minimum procurement price should be fixed at 50 per cent more than the cost of cultivation and farmers were now facing huge losses due to high input costs,” he said. He also said that apart from the high MRP, the scarcity in DAP was helping private dealers push up the cost even more and exploit the farmers.Speaking to Express over the phone, Velayudham, a paddy cultivator in Thanjavur, said that though complexes, along with urea, could be used to make up for DAP, such physical mixture required more labour, the cost of which has increased by more than 30 per cent in the last three years. “For an acre of paddy, I am spending at least Rs. 500 more than two years ago,” he said.
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