'I could not get fertiliser in the area. I could not apply any when the paddy was planted. The crop is about two months old now. Without fertiliser the rice has stopped growing.' Standing beside her field in Hajipara village of Ballaverkhas union in Nageshwari upazila, Kurigram, Hasina Begum described how she finally got urea: her husband, Azizar Rahman, who works loading and unloading trucks in Cumilla, heard of the shortage at home, bought 15 kg and sent it back with a young man returning to the village. On Saturday, 19 September, she spread it on her paddy.

At midday on Saturday, Hasina was having a relative broadcast the fertiliser over her 36 decimals of land. All around, the Aman fields were a deep green; in her plot the plants had turned reddish, stunted for want of a timely dose. She could not push through the crowd to stand in line at the dealer's, she said, and even the urea from Cumilla had arrived caked into lumps.

Hokman Ali, the farmer spreading the fertiliser for her, blamed a syndicate of sub-assistant agriculture officers, dealers and retailers. Fertiliser is sold off elsewhere at night, he said, and it can be had if you pay more.

Most farmers in Ballaverkhas union make the same complaint. Finding none at the dealer points, many are buying urea at a premium from retailers. Women farmers are worst placed: they can neither force their way into the queue at the dealer's warehouse nor slip off to buy quietly from a retailer.

Sub-assistant agriculture officer Rafiqul Islam said Aman has been planted on 1,869 hectares in the union this year. With no flooding, the area is 90 hectares above target, so the fertiliser allocation has fallen short of need. Most fields have had two doses, he said, but many still need one or two more; an additional 8 tonnes has been allocated and is being distributed.

On the allegation of a syndicate, he said there is no scope for selling fertiliser outside the system, and that distribution follows a check of stocks. But when fertiliser is released for the farmers of one block, farmers from other blocks crowd in as well, and disorder follows.

Elsewhere in Kurigram, farmers in Ulipur recently besieged an agriculture officer over urea they could not buy. At this stage of the Aman season, a missed urea dose feeds straight through to the harvest. The report is from Ajker Patrika's Kurigram correspondent.

Source: Ajker Patrika