The growers feel disenchanted with blockades as they are not getting sufficient fertilizers supplies for their standing wheat crop and the just begun boro rice planting.
The fertilizer supply shortage is acute particularly in the northern districts, said growers.
Dealers and officials said that the nationwide blockade hampered fertilizer supplies to buffer stocks, especially in the northern districts.
The dealers are charging higher prices for both urea and non urea fertilizers citing supply shortage as the reason, acknowledged officials as well as the dealers.
Fearing lingering blockades, growers bought more fertilizers than they need now to create stocks for the entire boro crop, the biggest fertilizer guzzler, they said.
‘Due to non shipment of the stocks of imported fertilizers from the seaports to buffer stocks during the blockade created a temporary crisis in the market,’ Bangladesh Fertilizer Association President Kamrul Ashraf Khan told New Age on Tuesday.
The fertilizer supply problem would end as soon as normal transportation is restored by the army in days, he said.
Agriculture ministry officials said that as of December 23, the national level urea fertilizer stocks stood at eight lakh tonnes, MOP at three lakh tonnes, DAP at two lakh tonnes and TSP at 2.5 lakh tonnes.
Agriculture ministry has asked the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation to take action against its contract bound transport companies for neglecting their responsibilities in reaching fertilizers to regional buffer stocks.
On December 23, the dealers transported 3405 tonnes of fertilizers from Jamuna Fertilizer Factory to 16 northern districts.
But the contract bound companies transported only 18 tonnes of fertilizer from Baghabari transit to Rangpur buffer stock on the same day.
The ministry told BCIC that unless it took action immediately the problem of fertilizer distribution would aggravate in January and February.
Sajjad Zahir Chandan, Bangladesh Krishak Samity general secretary, told New Age that farmers were buying fertilizer and diesel at higher prices for their boro crop.
He urged the opposition to exempt agricultural inputs and produces from the purview of blockade.
Local New Age correspondents reported that the farmers are buying fertilizers at double the official rates.
When asked, Abul Kalam Azad deputy director of the department of agriculture extension at Chapainawabganj told New Age that he distributed about 2,750 tonnes of urea from December 1 to 23 up from 1,850 tonnes during same period of last year.
DAE deputy director at Bogra AHM Bazlur Rashid told New Age that growers were buying more fertilizers than they need now to build stocks for the rest of the cropping season.
-With New Age input
