HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) Sunday condemned the black-marketing of urea and fertilizer, alleging that artificial shortage of these agriculture inputs is being created to inflate the prices.
SCA President Syed Meeran Muhammad Shah while chairing a meeting of the chamber held at its office asked Sindh Chief Minister to immediately take notice of the said hoarding and profiteering.
The meeting expressed concern that the situation might result in lower cultivation and harvest of the wheat crop in the province.
“The mafia has created artificial shortages of the fertilizers so that they could jack up the profits by further inflating the already high prices, ” said Shah.
He pointed out that the shortage had also contributed to crimes as some incidents of looting of the trucks transporting fertilizer had also been reported.
On behalf of the chamber, he asked the Sindh government to not only take notice but to take action against the mafia and stabilize the prices.
He warned the government that if it failed to make fertilizer available for the farmers, a wheat crisis would erupt. The SCA also called for fixing the wheat procurement price at Rs 2, 500 per 40 kilogram in order to financially support the inflation hit farmers.
The chamber deplored that the farmers were not being paid adequate price for the tomato and potato crops.
The farmers also pointed out that the continued ban of export of dates to India was causing financial losses to the farmers.
The office bearers and members of the chamber attended the meeting while the farmers representatives from Karachi, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Nawabshah and Ghotki attended through the video link.