The Agricultural Materials Company Limited and the Salt Trading Corporation Limited supply and distribute chemical fertilizers in the province, but at present, neither agency has urea.
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Farmers who have already brought in their paddy crop are preparing to sow wheat and plant vegetable crops. But farmers and sellers are also stressed due to lack of chemical fertilizers. There is an acute shortage of urea fertilizer in the Far West at the moment. This is the time to plant food crops including wheat, mustard, lentils, pulses and oilseed crops, and major vegetables including potatoes.
Madhu Chaudhary, a farmer from Badhara, Dhangadhi Sub-metropolitan City-3, said that he was stressed out because he did not receive chemical fertilizers until the time for laying the balanuli began.
Dabal Bahadur Bogati of Bhajani Municipality-9 in Kailali said that he had to plow his fields empty due to lack of fertilizers. “We do not know when the fertilizers will arrive. We always have problems with fertilizers,” he said. The bodies that supply and distribute chemical fertilizers in the Far West are the Agricultural Materials Company Limited and the Salt Trading Corporation Limited. Currently, neither of these bodies does not have urea fertilizer.
“Even though DAP is sporadic, there is no urea,” says Ramchandra Joshi, assistant at the Salt Trading Corporation Limited provincial office. “We cannot say when and in what quantity it will arrive. It depends on when the center sends it.” Of the fertilizer quota received by the Far West, 30 percent is received by Salt Trading and 70 percent by Agricultural Materials.
Navsingh Bogati, head of the Dhangadhi Provincial Office of the Agricultural Materials Company, said that efforts are being made to start selling fertilizer from next Tuesday. “We will start selling only if we have enough stock to sell 125 tons per day,” Bogati said. “Only 150 tons have arrived by Thursday.” The company’s provincial office has been selling and distributing fertilizer to farmers in districts other than Kanchanpur and Doti. The company has its own offices in Kanchanpur and Doti.
Bogati, head of the provincial office, said that fertilizer comes from Bhairahawa in the Far West. He said that the Far West has a quota of 9.22 percent urea and 9.07 percent DAP in the total fertilizer imported into Nepal. In the last fiscal year, the Dhangadhi office was able to sell 12,843 metric tons of urea and 8,647 tons of DAP.
‘This is not even half of the total demand,’ says office chief Bogati, ‘There is an annual demand of around 30,000 tons of urea and DAP.’ Farmers bring stolen fertilizer from the Indian border area to overcome the shortage of fertilizer. ‘This year, fertilizer has not been found in the market in the Indian border area either,’ said a farmer from Kailali.
The company has currently fixed DAP at Rs 4,773 per quintal and urea at Rs 1,873 per quintal. The company has not sold directly to farmers but has been selling fertilizer to private sector traders and cooperatives by setting quotas. There is a provision for farmers to buy fertilizer from dealers after providing agricultural inputs. In this way, when assigning dealers, at least two vendors are being assigned in a ward on the recommendation of the concerned local level, says office chief Bogati.
‘We have assigned around 400 dealers across Kailali district,’ said Bogati, ‘We have assigned 47 vendors in Dhangadhi.’ He says that the quantity of fertilizer to be provided to one vendor is not certain.
