Farmers oppose fertiliser policy, refuse to accept urea
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, August 04 2021: Farmers in Bishnupur district refused to accept urea provided by the district agriculture office at subsidised rate while protesting against the policy of allotting only one bag of fertiliser even though they have been waiting for their share of fertiliser for application in their farmland for nearly a month now.

The farmers have submitted their relevant documents to the district agriculture office on July 13 and they have been waiting for their share of urea since then.

Sources said that large number of farmers came to the district agriculture office since early morning on Wednesday to take urea, they demanded the officials to provide their share of fertiliser while enquiring the reason for the inordinate delay, stating thafdelaying further would prove meaningless of using the fertiliser in their fields.

The officials told them that fertiliser will arrive soon and asked them to wait for a few hours.

Around 2.30 pm, seven trucks loaded with urea arrived and the farmers were happy.

However, they were told that they would be given one bag of urea irrespective of their farmland size.

Many of the farmers have one to four hectares of farmland and they demanded to provide adequate quantity of urea as per policy of the government.

Negotiation with the DC and district agriculture officer continued till late evening but failed to arrive at any conclusion.

According to one of the farmers identified as Kh Samusaba of Kumbi Setpur Ward No 2 Mayai Leikai, they cannot use the fertiliser in their farmland without water.

The officials gave multiple assurances on different dates and the farmers used water pumps to irrigate their farmland by spending around Rs 3000 on each occasion.

Many of the farmers are also borrowing money from non-farmers with the promise of repayment as paddy after harvesting.

However, failure to deliver the fertiliser has severely affected economy of the farmers.

Apart from the money spent in bringing irrigation water to their farmlands, they are also spending their hard-earned money or borrowed money for coming to the DHQ to get their share of fertilisers on multiple occasions.

One bag of urea is needed for one hectare of farmland and the officials are telling the farmers to get only one bag and to come later for the remaining requirements.

Besides, they are not sure when they will get the remaining requirement from the office and as a result, the farmers demanded the officials to give an exact date for providing their full share of fertiliser, the farmer said.

He also pointed out that the fertiliser will prove meaningless if the government delays the timeline since they need to apply it in their farmland within a certain period of time.

As the officials insisted on giving one bag of fertiliser to each farmer and provide the remaining within a few days, the farmers refused the proposal arid returned home.

The farmers will discuss the matter possibly on Thursday, one of the farmers said.

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