The use of all types of fertiliser is expected to decline by 2.7 percent during the ongoing Rabi season as compared to last year's total fertiliser consumption of 4.116 million tons.
According to working paper available with Business Recorder to be tabled before Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) scheduled to meet on November 1, 2010, last year Pakistani farmers used about 4.116 million tons of different fertilisers, but this year fertiliser consumption would decline due to multiple issues relating to farmers as well as land.
Main reasons behind the lower demand for urea fertiliser was said to be inundation of a large agricultural area with floodwater and farmers' inability to purchase fertilisers due to high prices of the phosphate fertiliser prevailing in both domestic and international market for last six months, report said. The province will require 31,80,000 tons of urea, 765 tons of DAP, 45,000 tons of other phosphoric fertiliser (TSP/MAP) and 13 thousand tons of Potash fertiliser.
According to the report Punjab's total fertiliser demand will be around 2,993 thousand tons during the season. Sindh will require 520,000 tons of urea, 150,000 tons of DAP, 15,000 tons of other phosphoric fertiliser and 5,000 tons of Potash.
Similarly, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's (KPK) urea demand will be 190,000 tons, DAP 25,000 tons. Balochistan will need 90,000 tons of urea and 15,000 tons of DAP. The estimated supply-demand situation will begin with an opening inventory of 4,58,000 tons of urea.
Domestic production is estimated to be around 3.159 million tons (3159 thousand tons), thus total availability of the urea will be 3.617 million tons. The off-take for Rabi season is estimated to be around 3.180 million tons. Domestic urea production will remain at 3,159,000 tons while DAP domestic production will be 300,000 tons.
According to reports, cotton crop was damaged on about 1.7198 million acres mostly in Sindh and Punjab by the recent devastating floods while Pakistan's cotton production would remain 11.411 million bales from remaining 6.0359 million acres against set target of 14 million bales.
The government had initially fixed paddy production target at 5.949 million tons but estimates revealed that about 2.395 million tons crop was damaged in the floods, which cost about Rs 61.073 billion. The target for sugarcane crop was set at 54.834 million tons for 2009-10 but the floods damaged about 10.418 million tons and thus the expected crop was 44.42 million tons.
The damage to sugarcane crop is estimated at Rs 26.045 billion. The FCA meeting is likely to be informed about damages to other crops including citrus, jowar, moong, fruit, mash, til, fodder, vegetables, pulses, maize, etc with total cost of Rs 115.245 billion.
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