With the Rabi season around the corner, farmers in Jammu and Kashmir are facing an acute shortage of chemical fertilisers, particularly the high-quality Diammonium Phosphate (DAP), a boosting chemical essential for crops. According to farmers, the situation is more serious in the Kandi area of Jammu region where some cultivators have resorted to sowing wheat, mustard and peas without the mandatory use of DAP.

Although the Agriculture Department has distributed 27000 Metric tonnes (MT) of DAP, it has not reached all the intended beneficiaries. “People with political connections and money have got their share but small time cultivators are still waiting”, said Taranjeet Singh, a farmer from R S Pura. He added that very few people could avail of the fertilisers distributed by the Department as middlemen have siphoned it off. The crisis is more acute in Samba, Kathua, Vijaypur and Kandi belt of Jammu region where people are still awaiting the official supply and farmers in Vijaypur and Samba recently blocked the National Highway to protest against the inability of the Department to provide them with the required chemicals.

However, Director Agriculture Jammu, Vinod Bala Pandit denied that there was any fertiliser shortage at the moment and said that enough fertilisers had been procured to deal with the earlier scarcity. “We have despatched enough to the district headquarters within our jurisdiction and necessary steps are being taken to streamline its supply”, Pandit said.

This year has proved unlucky for the farming community in the state, particularly in the Jammu region. Even as farmers battled a shortage of water and subsequent hailstorms destroyed the standing paddy crop over 10,000 kanals in the Kharif season, the scarcity of fertilisers in the winter comes as a further blow. “If the government cannot help us who else should we approach. We have nowhere to go”, said Balwinder Singh from Marh.

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