Sokoto IFAD officer decries fertilizer sky rock by agro dealers

A staff of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Sokoto State, Alhaji Mohammed Kabiru Sanni has passionately condemned the activities of agro dealers through artificial scarcity of urea fertilizer, and uncontrollable increase in price from N7, 800 to N11, 800 in just one week.  Alhaji Sanni revealed this through a telephone conversation with Food Farm News yesterday.

Sanni said that the activities of agro dealers and Indorama, the producer of urea fertilizer under the Presidential Fertilizer Initiatives (PFI) of President Muhammadu Buhari be called to order so as to rescue the small scale farmers from not being denied access to the fertilizer subsidy of the Federal Government (FG) through artificial scarcity and unexplainable over night increase in price of the products despite higher quantity trucks supply into the state.

According to him ‘‘the increase in price of Indorama urea fertilizers in Sokoto is over 1000%. The price currently is N11, 800. I have just gone to all the market places in Sokoto to confirm this price. The dealers may have connived with the company to hike the price of the product as against the FG vision and mission for food security through accessibility at affordable prices to small scale farmers. Indorama don’t want to assist the government of Nigeria to achieve her dream of sustainable food productivity for food security and poverty reduction. How can you expect ordinary farmers who own less than a hectare of land to get N11, 800 to buy a bag of fertilizer? We cannot leave this to continue as extension agent of the state and cannot fold our hands without letting the FG know. That is why we are calling on the FG to come to the farmers’ rescue for her dream of sustainable security to come to pass as farmers are given access to fertilizer to plant rice, maize, vegetables and other crops ’’

Food Farm News also spoke with the representative of Indorama in the state, Mr. Goddey Adejoh who confirmed the hike in price of N11, 800, saying that the price should not be higher than N7, 000 to N7, 500 as he had reported the case to his supervisor for immediate action.

Adejoh pointed that many of the dealer complained of supplies not being released on time despite more of availability of the product than what it was last, saying this year’s supplies is much but pointed there were complaint of inability to access them thereby creating scarcity and increase in price.

Read the flow of his discussion with Food Farm news as follows

What is your name?

My name is Adejoh, an agronomics, G.O, ‘’G’’ stands for Goddey.

What happens with fertilizer price?

What happens is surprising to me as the price of Indorama fertilizer is just going up. When i went to the market today, a bag of urea fertilizer is sold in the open market for N11, 800. You know dealers sometimes are very cunning. You know selling it at N11, 800 has contradicted the PFI purpose of accessibility to small holders farmers, and very high margin of N6, 000?

I have reported it to my supervisor, but the dealers complained to me that some people had five trucks of fertilizer, and some seven that are never released to them. The transport logistic makes the price to go up, and what we discovered is that transport was part of the problem.

If the transportation problem had not been there, how much would it have been sold?

Even with transportation logistics, it supposes not to be more than N7, 000, or highest N7, 500. What they gave out this year is more than the last year.

Does it mean the dealers are hoarding the item to create scarcity?

That is why we want to have a meeting with them at the end of the month.

It is recall that the president of the Nigeria Agro input Dealers Association (NAIDA) Alhaji Kabiru Fara had once alleged Central bank of Nigeria and Federal Government of being responsible for the scarcity of fertilizer in the country through improper handling of the pricing of the products which were at variance.