Urea shortage threatens T&T rice farmers

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

Urea, a key com­mod­i­ty for agri­cul­ture that was pro­duced lo­cal­ly in T&T, is now in scarce sup­ply.

The short­age in the lo­cal mar­ket has thrown rice farm­ers in­to cri­sis, threat­en­ing both their liveli­hoods and the coun­try’s do­mes­tic sta­ple pro­duc­tion.

Since the Oc­to­ber 23 clo­sure of Cana­di­an fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien Ltd in Trinidad, 50-kilo­gramme bags of urea pro­duced by the com­pa­ny have be­come scarce on the shelves of agri­cul­tur­al stores, prompt­ing con­cerns over the fu­ture of the rice in­dus­try.

The sit­u­a­tion has be­come so se­vere that some stores are charg­ing black mar­ket prices for the fer­tilis­er.

In Sep­tem­ber, farm­ers paid $205 for a 50-kilo­gramme (110-pound) bag of urea—equiv­a­lent to $1.86 per pound.

Last month, fol­low­ing Nu­trien’s shut­down, some shops dou­bled the price to $400 per bag, or $3.64 per pound.

Last Wednes­day, Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed 12 agri­cul­tur­al stores across the coun­try to check urea avail­abil­i­ty. On­ly one Cen­tral-based store had stock, but in very lim­it­ed quan­ti­ties.

A two-pound bag was priced at $15, while four pounds cost $30—equat­ing to $7.50 per pound. The oth­er 11 stores re­port­ed emp­ty shelves.

Dur­ing op­er­a­tions, Nu­trien pro­duced 55,000 tonnes of urea month­ly, most of which was ex­port­ed to 30 coun­tries. Urea, con­tain­ing 46 per cent ni­tro­gen, is pri­mar­i­ly used as a plant fer­tilis­er to boost yields and crop health, mak­ing it es­sen­tial for rice pro­duc­tion.

Last month, Nu­trien an­nounced a con­trolled shut­down of its Trinidad Ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions at Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, de­spite be­ing grant­ed per­mis­sion to con­tin­ue us­ing the port un­til the end of the year.

The de­ci­sion was a re­sponse to port ac­cess re­stric­tions im­posed by the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC) and a lack of re­li­able, eco­nom­i­cal nat­ur­al gas sup­ply, which had re­duced the prof­itabil­i­ty of the op­er­a­tions over time.

The com­pa­ny no­ti­fied near­ly 600 em­ploy­ees and con­trac­tors about tem­po­rary work­force ad­just­ments, in­clud­ing short-term lay­offs.

At the cen­tre of the dis­pute is a $190 mil­lion (US$28 mil­lion) bill that NEC claims Nu­trien owes.

Last Wednes­day, for­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young asked Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment whether Nu­trien would restart its plant this year, fol­low­ing her high-lev­el meet­ing with the com­pa­ny’s ex­ec­u­tives.

In re­sponse, the Prime Min­is­ter con­firmed dis­cus­sions with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and NGC chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen, stat­ing:

“It was agreed that di­a­logue would con­tin­ue with tech­nocrats from NGC and Nu­trien. So con­ver­sa­tions are on­go­ing.”

Fur­ther dis­cus­sions, she said, would de­ter­mine the best way for­ward for both par­ties.

Rice farm­ers raise alarm

On Tues­day, a small group of rice farm­ers ad­mit­ted that the urea short­age is se­ri­ous­ly im­pact­ing their farms and liveli­hoods.

Sit­ting un­der a shed in Ca­roni with wor­ried ex­pres­sions, the farm­ers called on the Gov­ern­ment to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion, not­ing that al­ter­na­tive fer­tilis­ers are too ex­pen­sive.

Over the past three weeks, Eniath Ho­sein said they have been search­ing for Nu­trien’s urea but found none.

“We can’t get ac­cess to it. The stores have no urea for sale. Urea is sold out in most stores. The shelves are emp­ty,” Ho­sein said.

He added that stores with the fer­tilis­er are charg­ing ex­or­bi­tant prices.

“I was told that the black mar­ket price for urea right now is above $400 for a 50 kg bag. It’s more than dou­ble what we were pay­ing. So we have to pay ex­or­bi­tant prices for what­ev­er they have,” he said.

Ho­sein, who cul­ti­vates 200 acres of rice in Ca­roni, said farm­ers are re­sort­ing to oth­er fer­tilis­ers with less ni­tro­gen, such as CAN-27, which con­tains 27 per cent ni­tro­gen.

Im­port­ed from Hol­land, a 40-kilo­gramme (88-pound) bag costs $265, or rough­ly $3 per pound.

“Noth­ing is as good as urea, which works best in wa­ter­logged con­di­tions. With these oth­er fer­tilis­ers, you have to dou­ble the dosage and spend more mon­ey to get the de­sired re­sults,” Ho­sein ex­plained.

The in­creased cost has forced farm­ers to dig deep­er in­to their pock­ets to main­tain pro­duc­tion.

“When farm­ers face ris­ing costs, they will re­duce the vol­ume of fer­tilis­ers used on crops. This will af­fect yields and our liveli­hoods. This is a big prob­lem for us right now.”

Ho­sein warned that the un­avail­abil­i­ty of urea could threat­en the fu­ture of the rice in­dus­try.

“If farm­ers don’t have ac­cess to urea, they are not go­ing to plant rice. Some may aban­don rice cul­ti­va­tion en­tire­ly,” he said.

Strug­gling in­dus­try

In the ear­ly 1990s, Trinidad and To­ba­go had 6,000 rice farm­ers pro­duc­ing 21,200 met­ric tonnes of rice an­nu­al­ly.

How­ev­er, pay­ment de­lays, cli­mate change, ris­ing fer­tilis­er costs, high pro­duc­tion ex­pens­es, low yields, in­suf­fi­cient dry-sea­son wa­ter, and lack of po­lit­i­cal sup­port led farm­ers to aban­don their fields, shrink­ing the sec­tor dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

By 2018, pro­duc­tion had dropped to just 585 met­ric tonnes, and the farm­ing pop­u­la­tion dwin­dled to 40 rice farm­ers. These farm­ers man­age 4,000 acres of land across Plum Mi­tan, Biche, Fe­lic­i­ty, El Car­men, and Ca­roni, but cur­rent­ly on­ly cul­ti­vate 1,000 acres.

Each acre can pro­duce 3,800 pounds of rice, ac­count­ing for less than five per cent of lo­cal con­sump­tion. NFM pur­chas­es rice at a guar­an­teed price: $2.99/kg for grade one pad­dy, $2.86 for grade two, and $1.86 for grade three.

Ac­cord­ing to the World In­te­grat­ed Trade So­lu­tion, T&T im­port­ed 31,430,200 kg of rice cost­ing US$28.5 mil­lion in 2024, from Guyana, Brazil, In­dia, Suri­name, the USA, and Cana­da.

Long-stand­ing farmer Fazal Akaloo said rice cul­ti­va­tion re­lies heav­i­ly on large quan­ti­ties of urea.

“Rice cul­ti­va­tion is to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent. The Gov­ern­ment should take more in­ter­est in the sec­tor. The ups and downs in the rice in­dus­try are due to the lack­adaisi­cal ap­proach of the au­thor­i­ties. Con­sid­er­ing the in­vest­ment farm­ers put in­to equip­ment, it’s not worth it.”

He said en­ter­ing rice pro­duc­tion costs around $1.5 mil­lion per farmer, and the in­creased cost of al­ter­na­tive fer­tilis­ers has been a heavy bur­den.

“How long can we sus­tain these in­creased costs? Frus­tra­tion will set in, and farm­ers may quit. The rice in­dus­try has been hang­ing in the bal­ance for too long.”

Akaloo called for T&T to be­come self-suf­fi­cient in rice pro­duc­tion, not­ing that pre­vi­ous rec­om­men­da­tions for a steer­ing com­mit­tee have yet to be act­ed up­on:

“We have the ca­pa­bil­i­ties to grow rice in T&T, but we lack po­lit­i­cal will. The pow­ers that be are on­ly talk­ing. We want to see ac­tion.”

Joe Pires, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Caribbean Chem­i­cal and Agen­cies Ltd, con­firmed the scarci­ty of urea.

“There is not much on the mar­ket. Most of our cus­tomers have none,” Pires said.

He added that a ten per cent du­ty was im­posed on urea when Nu­trien man­u­fac­tured it lo­cal­ly, while oth­er fer­tilis­ers re­mained du­ty-free.

“With Nu­trien no longer pro­duc­ing urea, the Gov­ern­ment should re­move the du­ties on im­port­ed urea. We plan to ap­proach the min­is­ter to re­duce the du­ty un­til Nu­trien re­sumes pro­duc­tion.”

Pires cau­tioned that im­port­ing urea would raise prices fur­ther:

“Im­port­ed urea would cost $295–$299 per 50-kilo­gramme bag, about 25 per cent more for farm­ers.”

Some farm­ers have turned to sul­phate of am­mo­nia (SoA), which con­tains 21 per cent ni­tro­gen. An 88-pound bag re­tails at $170, or $2.02 per pound.

“SoA is half the ni­tro­gen strength of urea, yet more ex­pen­sive,” Pires said.

He stressed, how­ev­er, that the short­age of urea does not mean agri­cul­ture will shut down.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram on Thurs­day via What­sApp to ask about the urea scarci­ty and pos­si­ble du­ty re­duc­tions, but he did not re­spond.