Balochistan Minister for Agriculture Mir Asadullah Baloch demanded the federal government to ensure availability of required quantity of urea fertilizer as the farmers were provided less than half of the fertilizer share needed for cultivation in the province.
The farmers have been provided 50,000 tonnes of fertilizer against their need of over 100,000 tonnes, thus the record shortage of the fertilizer has made the farmers unable to cultivate crops, told the Balochistan Agriculture Minister in an exclusive chat with APP highlighting the prevailing situation in the province.
Baloch informed that 80 percent of the local population depended on agriculture for their livelihood.
There was a shortage of urea fertilizer in the country and the people of Naseerabad Division are completely dependent on agriculture,” he said.
The federal government should provide urea fertilizer to the people of Balochistan as per their requirement, he underscored.
He urged that the departments concerned should take more steps to curb the smuggling of urea fertilizer to neighbouring countries which was one of the reasons of increase in its scarcity.
The minister said that if urea fertilizer supply was not restored to Balochistan, the province might fail to achieve the wheat target fixed as wheat-growing areas of Nasirabad division are facing serious situation due to fertilizer shortage.
Frontier Corps and other security forces deployed on the borders should take action against the elements involved in the smuggling of urea fertilizer to Afghanistan,” he added.–APP
