A shortage of urea has left the State’s pineapple farmers in distress.
Urea, along with potash, is the most needed input for pineapple, both for growth and for uniform flowering, says Joy Mathew, pineapple farmer. He points out that there appears to be less of urea being allotted for the State.
The shortage comes at a time when farmers are coping with excess rainfall and trying to recoup previous seasons’ losses through more intense cultivation, says Mr. Mathew. Pineapple price has dropped to ₹18 a kg for best quality fruit now, but farmers expect the price to move up with the rain subsiding.
In place of rubber
Another pineapple farmer Baby John says the acreage under pineapple cultivation has gone up substantially with farmers in Kottayam, Kanjirappally, Pathanamthitta, and Kozhikode using vacant land for pineapple cultivation as little rubber replantation is taking place. It is estimated that around 18,000 hectares is under pineapple cultivation in the State with about 5,000 farmers in the business.
Fertilizer industry sources say a key reason for the shortage is the more than average rainfall across south India, which has boosted the demand for urea for paddy cultivation in States such as Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu reservoirs are full and urea allocation has gone to rice-growing areas in large quantities, sources indicate.
Even in Kerala, allotments are mostly earmarked for rice-growing areas in Thrissur and Alappuzha, sources say. A load of around 1,200 tonnes arrived in Aluva last week. While the consignment may meet the demand temporarily in some areas, it is not sufficient to meet the demand across the State, Mr. John adds. Priced at ₹6 a kg after subsidy, urea is a sought-after fertilizer input among farmers across India.
The FACT factor
Meanwhile, industry sources say a key reason for the shortage of urea in Kerala is the stoppage of production by Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) in 2003.
The FACT plant had a capacity to produce two lakh tonnes of urea a year, of which one lakh tonne was allocated for Kerala, where the demand is between 10,000 and 15,000 tonnes a month.
