The prices of fertilisers have increased enormously in a year time with statistics showing that prices of urea and DAP were up by 30.39 and 151.30 percent respectively on July 31, 2008 over the same period last year. According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), the cost of 50-kg urea and DAP have gone up from Rs 544 and Rs 1,222 respectively in July 2007 to Rs 709.33 to Rs 3,071 in July 2008.
This trend of increase in prices of other fertiliser products also continued with statistics showing that price of RSP phosphate (GR) increased by 201.68 percent. The price of 50-kg phosphate has increased from Rs 805.50 a year ago to Rs 2,430 on July 31, 2008 while the cost of a 50-kg bag of nitro phosphate increased from Rs 841.00 to Rs 1,989.78 on July 31, 2008, following an increase of 136.97 percent.
Similarly, the price of SSP phosphate (GR) surged from Rs 396.25 a year ago to Rs 919.17 on July 31, 2008, and increased by 131.97 percent while the cost of 50-kg bag of SSP phosphate (PD) have gone up from Rs 339.67 to Rs 775 following an increase of 128.16 percent during the period under review.
The cost of 50-kg bag of Urea Kisan has gone up by 33.52 percent from Rs 527 a year ago to Rs 704 on July 31. The price of sulphate of pot after an increase of 122.65 percent has gone to Rs 2,183.57 from Rs 980.71 during the period under review while ammonium sulphate increased by 66.67 percent. The price of a 50-kg bag has increased from Rs 780 to Rs 1,300 in a year.
The weekly analysis of the data showed that increasing trend in fertilisers prices continued during the week from July 26 to 31 with 3.91 percent rise in the cost of Urea Sona 50-kg bag while the prices of Urea Kisan surged by 4.49 percent nitro phosphate 0.56 percent and phosphate (PD) 1.97 percent. Increasing prices of DAP and other fertilisers may discourage their usage and thus negative effect on productivity.
The situation may worsen if the country again failed to produce enough wheat in the current fiscal year. The wheat production was well short of over two million tonnes last year against the target of 24 million tonnes.
Agriculture is a dominant force in the gross domestic product (GDP), representing 60 percent of the economy and employing 68 percent of the total labour force. It may be mentioned that the agriculture growth was revised to only 1.49 percent in 2007-08 against the budget target of 4.8 percent.
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