Urea shortage takes away smile of Sangrur farmers
Monday, 15/12/2014
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
SANGRUR: Though the recent rainfall brought immense relief to the farmers here as the rain is good for wheat crop, the shortage of urea is a matter of great concern to them.
“Urea is a must after 20-25 days of sowing of wheat. Its demand has increased after rain, but farmers are not able to get it due to acute shortage of the fertiliser. It may affect the growth of the wheat plant at the initial stage,” said Kripal Singh, a Dhuri farmer.
“The government is working under the influence of the urea dealers, who have deliberately created the shortage to sell the other products along with urea,” he added.
As the sowing of the crop was completed well in time and there was no rainfall at the initial stage, the agriculture experts are now hopeful that the recent rain will help the growth of the plant and wheat production may break all the previous records as this year the crop will get 15 days extra of the winter season before the harvesting of paddy thanks to the rainfall, which had advanced the wheat sowing by about a fortnight.
“The rain has brought a hope of another bumper crop for the farmers of Sangrur district, which has won three awards for the highest yield per acre. We are again expecting to win another award this year as weather conditions are in favour of the wheat crop,” said chief agriculture officer Rajinder Sohi.
According to the district agriculture office, acreage under the wheat crop this year has fallen to 2.84 lakh hectare from 2.85 lakh hectare last year, but the officials in the agriculture department are of the view that the fall in the acreage will not affect the production.
The agriculture department has set a target of producing 15.67 lakh tonne of wheat equal to that of the last year with per hectare yield of 55 quintal against 54.98 quintals last year, said data analyst at the district agriculture office Hardeep Singh.
He said the district produced a yield of 5,494 kg per hectare during 2011-12 and 5,169 kg per hectare wheat was produced during 2012-13, thereby putting Sangrur on the top in both these years.
