KENDRAPARA: The fate of a large number of farmers in Kendrapara district is hanging in balance as fertiliser has become a scarce commodity during the kharif cultivation season.
Thousands of farmers in the region are facing problems in procuring Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) and urea and are apprehensive that if adequate amount of fertiliser is not supplied to the district within a week, their paddy saplings would not survive.
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Bhikari Mohanty, a farmer of Ichhapur, said he came to Kendrapara to buy fertiliser on Saturday but returned empty-handed. “Our livelihood is at stake and our pleas to supply adequate amount of fertiliser to the district have fallen on deaf ears,” he said.
Owing to shortage of fertiliser, several farmers are forced to buy sub-standard and even spurious DAP and urea at exorbitant prices from black marketeers. Krusaka Sabha district unit president Gayadhar Dhal said farmers are likely to suffer huge losses if the supply is not normalised soon.
Another farmers’ leader Umesh Chandra Singh said shortage of fertiliser during the cultivation season will seriously hamper the plans of the Government to push agriculture as a significant contributor to development.
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“If the authorities do not act fast, it would not be possible to save paddy saplings on large tracts of agriculture land,” he said. Singh said the farmers of the district are already distressed over scanty rainfall in June and July and now shortage of fertiliser has added to their woes.
Farm Management Specialist of Agriculture department, Kendrapara Haricharan Rath the farmers of Kendrapara district have sown paddy over 1,23,000 hectares of land for which they need around 15,350-tonne fertiliser. “We have already received 1,000-tonne fertiliser from the Government and will get more soon,” he said.
Rath said out of 121 cooperative societies, only 57 have lifted fertiliser from the Agriculture department for sale to farmers. “Stringent action would be taken against those involved in sale of spurious fertilisers,” he warned.