Non-urea fertiliser prices may fall

The government considers measures to bring down the prices of non-urea fertilisers in a bid to help farmers reduce their production costs and encourage balanced use of fertilisers in Boro crop season, agriculture adviser said yesterday.
However the price of urea fertiliser will not be revised downward as there is apprehension that farmers may use it excessively if the price is cut from the present level.
“We are considering measures to bring down the prices of non-urea fertilisers. We haven't yet fixed how much percentage of prices to be cut. But we are hopeful about taking a decision in this regard soon,” Agriculture Adviser CS Karim told The Daily Star yesterday.
The government initiative to cut back the prices of non-urea fertilisers such as TSP (triple super phosphate), MoP (murate of potash) and DAP (diammonium phosphate) comes at the time when farmers are faced with high input costs due to a sharp increase in fertiliser prices earlier.
Since May this year, prices of urea, TSP and MoP fertilisers shot up more than double on the domestic market although their prices on the world market are on the downturn, thanks to global financial meltdown and recession woes.
Local farmers buy a kilogram of urea fertiliser at Tk 12-14 now, increased from Tk 6 in May this year. The price of TSP fertiliser also rose to Tk 75- 80 a kg from Tk 34 in May, while MoP price went up to Tk 45-48 from Tk 30 in the same month.
According to Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a local independent think tank, international prices of all types of fertilisers except MoP slumped between August and November period.
During this period, urea price dropped by 68 percent to $246 from $770 per tonne on the world market. DAP price decreased by 48 percent to $612 per tonne from $1,177 and the price of TSP also fell by 19 percent to $915 from $ 1,132.
But the price of MoP increased.
Uttam Kumar Deb, head of research of CPD, said local farmers should be benefited from falling prices of fertilisers on the global market. “The prices of fertilisers should be down in line with the international market prices. Otherwise farmers may face difficulty in using fertilisers in Boro season,” he said.
Deb said high prices of fertilisers particularly of TSP and MoP have already created imbalanced use of fertiliser and this problem might aggravate in Boro season.
CS Karim also underlined the risk of imbalanced use of fertiliser due to high prices of non-urea ones. “We want to encourage farmers to make a balanced use of fertilisers,” he said.
Officials said the government now provides 15 percent subsidy at import level for such non-urea fertilisers as TSP and MoP.
Private companies import all these non-urea fertilisers, the demand for which has been set at over 9 lakh tonnes for Boro and Rabi crop seasons, they said. The demand for urea fertiliser has been set at over 28 lakh tonnes for the current year, according to official figure.
The agriculture adviser said the ministry has no plan to go for a downward revision of urea fertiliser price. “A drop in urea price may encourage farmers to make excessive use of it,” he said.
MA Razzaq, former executive chairman of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, also believed reduction in urea fertiliser price might encourage farmers to use more of it.
“A fall in price may also increase misuse of urea fertiliser,” he said.
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