LAHORE: Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) expressing concern over the speculations of further potential surge in urea prices has said it will seriously harm farmers who are already struggling with high production costs, rendering the crop production sector economically unsustainable.
PKI President, Khalid Mahmood Khokhar in a statement issued here Friday, said that the plight of maize and cotton growers, who had suffered significant losses due to plummeting produce prices, underscores the urgent need for effective support measures.
Khokhar emphasized that the existing sticker-based subsidy mechanism had proven ineffective to reimburse their legitimate claims. Pinpointing the root cause of the current high urea market prices, he attributed it to an imbalance in supply and demand.
Drawing from the example of 2016, when an oversupply situation forced fertilizer industry to sell urea at discounted rates, he stressed the necessity of ensuring ample supplies to stabilize prices and make urea accessible at affordable rates for farmers.
He emphasized that the current pricing trends in most of the agricultural commodities versus production costs were rendering farming increasingly unsustainable, especially for small-scale farmers constituting 90% of the farming community. To ensure economic viability and sustainable production of crops, he demanded that urea prices should not exceed Rs. 3,000 per bag.
Khokhar delved into the primary cause behind the soaring market prices of urea: the imbalance in demand-supply dynamics. He emphasized this point with crucial statistics. The current annual estimate for urea consumption stands at 7,000,000 MT largely driven by expansion in agricultural areas and increased fertilizer utilization in cereals and cotton crops.
“The farming community, striving to enhance wheat production from the current 34 maunds/acre to 40 maunds/acre; encounters obstacles when essential inputs like urea become scarce or unaffordable. Immediate government action and a long-term strategy are crucial to rectify the current situation and prevent future occurrences,” he concluded.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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