Enough supply of seeds & fertilisers to meet rabi demand: Agri Min

There is sufficient supply of seeds and fertilisers to meet the demand of farmers for the rabi sowing season beginning mid-November, according to an agriculture ministry official.

The ministry has estimated the country's total seed requirement at 149 lakh tonne and fertilisers at 319 lakh tonne for the rabi season of 2019-20 crop year (July-June).

"We have enough supply of seeds for the forthcoming rabi sowing. We have about 169.67 lakh tonne of various seeds, more than the requirement of 149 lakh tonne for the rabi season of this year," the official told PTI.

Wheat is the main rabi crop. The country has about 140 lakh tonne of wheat seeds for this year, against the requirement of about 122 lakh tonne for the same period.

The second major rabi crop is chickpea, availability of which is 24 lakh tonne against the requirement of 21.06 lakh tonne for this year's rabi season.

Similarly, the availability of mustard seeds is estimated to be higher at 2.25 lakh tonne against the requirement of 2.05 lakh tonne for the same season.

The availability of sorghum, blackgram, greengram and lentil seeds is also estimated to be higher than the requirement during the season.

In case of fertilisers, the government has assessed the requirement at 319 lakh tonne during the rabi season. Of this, urea requirement is pegged at 174 lakh tonne, di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) at 51.61 lakh tonne, Muriate of Potash (MoP) at 17.76 lakh tonne, NPK fertilisers at 50.13 lakh tonne and super sulphate (SSP) at 25.33 lakh tonne.

The official said there is enough supply of fertilisers to meet the demand.