A severe fertiliser shortage coupled with skyrocketing prices of potato seed is playing havoc with the plans of potato farmers to recover their paddy losses incurred owing to delayed monsoons this year.
The seed and fertiliser paucity in the ‘potato belt’ of the state is sabotaging the recovery plans of the farmers by delaying sowing of potato and allied crops like mustard.
Thousands of farmers in the region are facing serious trouble procuring the requisite quantity of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and urea fertilisers even as the prices of seeds have reached prohibitive level of Rs 1,800/quintal (100 kg).
Bhartiya Kisan Sangh leader Keshav Singh told Business Standard that the peasants were being forced to buy DAP at exorbitant rates artificially maintained by the black marketers and illicit hoarders.
According to Singh, the co-operative societies and selling centres are being able to provide only 20 per cent of the demand while the rest has to be fulfiled from the open market, which is being controlled by the hoarders.
The demand-supply gap is so immense that the peasants return empty-handed despite queuing up for their turn right from midnight prior to the distribution day.
A number of minor incidents of mobbing and agitation by troubled peasants have occurred last week in various districts of the region.
The potato farmers, already facing heavy losses, received police blows instead of DAP and affordable seed.
In Farrukhabad, Kannauj and Urai, the situation has reached distressing proportions as the peasants who had sold their produce to cold storage owners at Rs 400 per quintal fearing losses are now compelled to buy seed for Rs 1,800-2,000 per quintal.
The cold storage owners had stocked the potato anticipating price rise indicated by lower production and acreage this year while the same was being sold to farmers for planting at much higher prices.
This dual debacle, coupled with delayed monsoons this year, has taken a heavy toll on the ‘potato belt’ farmers.
Their only hope is to recover their paddy losses by sowing potato and selling it in the open market within the next 60-70 days.
The DAP, priced at Rs 471 per packet, is selling in black market for Rs 550-700 per packet, putting the poorer and marginal peasants in deep trouble.
“In Bilhaur near Kanpur, the society owner had forged a sale of 450 fertiliser packets and declined to distribute further citing stock consumption. When the peasants came to know the truth, it resulted in to a mob,” clarified Singh.
The demand for DAP is expected to rise when the sowing of wheat will commence in November.
“The government should develop some mechanism to regulate the improper and biased distribution system and take timely action against the culprits so that the common peasant can hope to continue with farming as a vocation. The farmers are falling prey to the evil designs of the hoarders and agents who virtually control the market,” said Singh.
Peasants alleged that the co-operative societies were indulging in partial and unfair treatment of the farmers.
The societies show stock exhaustion on paper and decline to distribute the stock, while supplying it to the open market.
