Ratiram urges farmers to source alternative fertilisers

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram says there are al­ter­na­tive fer­tilis­ers that farm­ers can use as the Gov­ern­ment seeks to set­tle the on­go­ing dis­pute with Nu­trien.

Farm­ers have been com­plain­ing that there may be an in­crease in prices for pro­duce due to a short­fall cre­at­ed af­ter the com­pa­ny stopped pro­duc­tion for the rest of the year.

The shut­down of Nu­trien’s am­mo­nia op­er­a­tions at Point Lisas is slow­ing the sup­ply of ni­tro­gen fer­tilis­er, which is al­ready af­fect­ing the pro­duc­tion crops in both pineap­ple and rice fields.

In mid-No­vem­ber, top ex­ec­u­tives from Nu­trien met Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment at the Red House in do-or-die talks on the com­pa­ny’s fu­ture, af­ter it shut down op­er­a­tions due to a dis­pute with the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

Nu­trien re­mains firm that it will not pay retroac­tive port fees im­posed by NGC chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen, which led to it be­ing tem­porar­i­ly shut down.

Asked about the farmer con­cerns ahead of Fri­day’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting, Rati­ram said: “There are lots of al­ter­na­tives avail­able with re­spect to the ni­tro­gen avail­able on the mar­ket. There are a lot of al­ter­na­tives.”

He added that the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues con­ver­sa­tions with Nu­trien.

Pineap­ple farmer Roopc­hand Chan­der­bal­ly says he has al­ready start­ed us­ing al­ter­na­tive sources of ni­tro­gen, but not­ed that the price of a sub­sti­tute fer­tilis­er has start­ed to climb.

“Right now, be­cause we can­not get urea, we have no choice but to use sul­fate of am­mo­nia,” he told Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day.

“This short­age is hit­ting us hard and the price will keep go­ing up, which means ad­di­tion­al costs for us. Urea keeps the plants green. The oth­er salt is more for the bear­ing and the fruits.”

Mean­while, Rati­ram said come Jan­u­ary, there will be “a lot of agri­cul­tur­al youth pro­grammes” rolled out. He said the au­dit in­to the Youth in Agri­cul­ture Home­stead Pro­gramme (YAHP) is still on­go­ing and he is await­ing the com­ple­tion of that au­dit be­fore he can say if the pro­gramme will re­sume.

The au­dit was launched in June af­ter al­le­ga­tions that the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion mis­led hun­dreds of young peo­ple with promis­es of land, homes and fund­ing that nev­er ma­te­ri­alised.

The ini­tia­tive, launched un­der for­mer Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings, was ex­pect­ed to pro­duce 1,000 new farm­ers, but ac­cord­ing to Rati­ram, not a sin­gle promise was ful­filled and the starter homes are nowhere to be seen al­though fund­ing had been al­lo­cat­ed.