A nationwide shortage of di-ammonium phosphate, or DAP, has triggered panic among farmers in Haryana, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday. This has led to the police being deployed at the distribution centres of the fertiliser to manage the crowds.

Farmers use DAP in the early stage of root establishment and development. They apply it along with the seeds.

The sowing of mustard is underway and the sowing of wheat will begin after Diwali. Farmers usually need one 50-kg bag of DAP for every acre of mustard and wheat sown. In the case of potatoes, they need three bags per acre.

The shortage of DAP is being attributed to higher global prices, coupled with the government setting a low minimum retail price. Additionally, lower subsidy concessions have made imports unviable, The Indian Express reported.

Due to this, DAP bags were being sold in the presence of the police at Gohana in Sonipat district and Narnaul in Mahendragarh, according to the newspaper.

On Saturday, a farmer was injured in Jind’s Uchana when the police tried to manage the crowd that had gathered at the local cooperative society office to buy DAP, The Indian Express reported.

In the Bhiwani district, the staffers of a cooperative society had taken over the distribution process at the Tosham police station. They were handing paper slips to farmers so that they could be exchanged for DAP bags.

Sanjay Kumar, the sub-divisional officer (Bhiwani) of the agriculture department, said that the police were called but could not control the crowd. “We thought a scuffle may break out, so we decided to issue slips from the police station,” he was quoted as saying.

The shortage

The current minimum retail price of DAP is Rs 1,350 per bag, or Rs 27,000 per tonne. The subsidy amounts to Rs 21,911. The gross realisation for companies comes to Rs 48,911 per tonne.

However, the landed price of DAP imports has reached Rs 53,930-54,100 per tonne. Along with import duty, bagging, port handling charges, interest and dealer margins, the cost increases to about Rs 65,000 per tonne.

This higher cost has meant that 19.6 lakh tonnes of DAP were imported between April and September, compared to 34.5 lakh tonnes during the same period last year.

In Hisar district, there has been a supply of 8,000 metric tonnes of DAP against the demand of 25,000 metric tonnes, Haryana Agriculture Department Deputy Director Rajbir Singh told The Indian Express.

The supply is expected to improve in the coming days, Singh was quoted as saying.

On October 23, the Union Chemical and Fertiliser Ministry said that reports claiming there is a nationwide shortage of DAP are “misleading, misplaced and devoid of factual position”.

The minimum retail price of DAP has been maintained at Rs 1,350 per 50-kg bag since the Covid-19 pandemic, the ministry said.

However, it said that the availability of DAP “has been affected somewhat by several geopolitical factors” including the long shipping route taken by the vessels around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa instead of the Red Sea.

“However, intensive efforts have been made by the Department of Fertilisers to augment the availability substantially during September-November, 2024,” it added.

The ministry said that the overall increase in DAP prices in the global market has been taken care of by “another Cabinet decision by which subsidy has been linked to the market prices”.

On Saturday, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann met Union Chemical and Fertiliser Minister JP Nadda seeking adequate supply of DAP to his state primarily till November 15, the Hindustan Times reported.

Mann was quoted as having asked the Centre to allocate the fertiliser to Punjab on priority, saying that the state contributes 50% of the supply of wheat to the national food pool.