Retail gross sales of fertilisers have fallen 12.4 per cent in April-July over the corresponding 4 months of final 12 months. All main vitamins have posted decrease gross sales: urea (minus 12.8 per cent), di-ammonium phosphate (minus 27.5 per cent), muriate of potash (minus 8.8 per cent) and complicated fertilisers (minus 6.5 per cent). Only single tremendous phosphate gross sales have registered a 4.6 per cent year-on-year enhance.
Reduced fertiliser purchases by farmers is in step with the Agriculture Ministry’s information that exhibits a 4.7 per cent drop within the space sown beneath kharif crops until July 30, relative to the protection throughout the identical interval of the 2020 season. Farmers have thus far planted 4 per cent much less space beneath rice, with these lagging by 3 per cent for pulses, 5.7 per cent for coarse cereals, 5.5 per cent for oilseeds and eight.7 per cent for cotton.
Both fertiliser gross sales in addition to kharif acreages being down are largely as a consequence of an erratic monsoon. While the nation acquired 9.6 per cent above long-period common rainfall in June, it was 6.7 per cent under regular in July. But extra essential was an prolonged dry spell from round June 20 to July 11. Since mid-June to mid-July is the height time for kharif sowing, many farmers are seen to have missed out on that window. While the rains revived from July 12, general gross sales of fertiliser for the month have been nonetheless 16.6 per cent down in comparison with July 2020 (see desk).
Satish Chander, director-general of the Fertiliser Association of India, felt that evaluating April-July 2021 gross sales to April-July
2020 will not be wholly correct. Last 12 months, there was lot of panic shopping for due to the lockdown-related uncertainties. Although agricultural inputs have been exempted from any motion, distribution or retailing restrictions, farmers in addition to sellers stocked up materials in anticipation of kharif demand. Fertiliser gross sales in April-July 2020 have been, in truth, 56.7 per cent greater over April-July 2019.
But gross sales slowed within the subsequent months, with the fiscal (April-March) as a complete recording 9.7 per cent progress.
“We are back to normal growth now and hope it to be so for the rest of the year,” stated Satish Chander.
A big supply of fear, nonetheless, is worldwide costs. In the final one 12 months, costs of urea imported into India have doubled to about $520 per tonne. The landed price and freight costs of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and muriate of potash (MOP) have equally gone up from $330 and $230 to $630 and $280 per tonne, respectively, whereas additionally rising for inputs comparable to phosphoric acid ($625 to $1,160), ammonia ($205 to $670) and sulphur ($75 to $200).
Fertiliser costs have principally tracked international agri-commodity costs. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s world meals value index has soared by 33.9 per cent between June 2020 and June 2021. But in fertilisers, there are a few further components at work.
The first is China. India has been importing roughly 3 million tonnes (mt) of urea and 2-3 million tonnes of DAP yearly from China. But China has, of late, been resorting to strategic stockpiling of fertilisers fairly than supplying to the world market.
The second is Belarus, which is India’s second largest provider of MOP after Canada. The latest financial sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union in opposition to the Belarusian regime have raised the prospects of an additional hardening of MOP costs.
“Morocco’s state-owned company OCP, too, has raised its supply price of phosphoric acid for India from $998 to $1,160 per tonne. This is a clear indication we are in a seller’s market in fertilisers similar to that witnessed back in 2008,” an trade skilled identified.
According to him, the issues in fertiliser is not going to be in kharif, however within the upcoming rabi season. “The government should review the stock availability of all nutrients factoring in view the tightening global supply conditions. Not doing can prove costly just ahead of Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and other states in February-March,” he added.