Nigeria Agro Input Dealers Association (NAIDA) and Fertilizers Producers and Suppliers Association of Nigeria (FEPSAN) have appealed to the federal government to investigate the high price of urea fertilizer with a view to bringing down the price.
Chairman of the agro dealers association, Kabir Umar Fara and his FESPAN counterpart, Sadiq Kassim, who made the appeal while speaking with newsmen in Zaria Thursday decried the hike in the cost of urea fertilizer by Dangote and Indorama, noting that if not checked, the situation has tendency to affect the farm yield, cost of agric produce, food security and plunge Nigeria into devastating food crisis.
Umar said: “We have food crisis in Nigeria, and if care is not taken, it could be worse. Urea giant companies; Dangote, Indorama, Notore have a combined capacity of nearly 6 million tonnes annually. This year, they have deprived Nigerian farmers of their products, which we believe were smuggled out of the country as against the March 2022 Agreement, duly signed and sent to the National Security Adviser (NSA), which stipulates that Dangote Group and Indorama Corp must reserve at least 35% of their chemicals for the Nigerian market.
“Moreover, Munish Jindal, the Indian boss of Indorama Corp told representatives of the Minister of Agriculture that he sold 90,000 tonnes of urea to the local market since the start of this year. But our investigation revealed that the company sold nothing to over 36.5 million Nigerian farmers which led to the ridiculous increase of the product price to almost N40,000.
“Therefore, I urge the Minister of Agriculture, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, and the National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, to carefully look into this and do the needful before it further plunge Nigeria into more devastating food crisis, which we all know its effects to our economy, food security, as well as, the national security which are the backbone of our dear country. We are calling the attention of the federal government to investigate the reasons for the high cost of urea fertilizer in Nigeria.”
