Midagri: Fertilizers from the new procurement process will arrive in two weeks of August.

The fertilizers to be purchased under the new procurement process to be launched by the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (Midagri) will arrive in two weeks of August.

During the press conference, Midagri Director General of Statistics, Policy Monitoring and Evaluation Cesar Santisteban assured that fertilizer she will arrive on time for the 2022-2023 agricultural campaign, since, according to her research, the main agricultural crop areas are concentrated from October to November.

“Fertilizers should arrive in mid-August (…) Right now, neighboring countries that have warehouses and are engaged in sales, such as Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, are overloaded with fertilizers; the fertilizer will arrive in less time,” he said at the presentation of the National Planting Intentions Survey (ENIS-2022).

Santisteban pointed out that the main variable that is taken into account in this process, third after two unsuccessful purchase processes, is the delivery time of the goods. urea.

The official added that when the first procurement process was carried out, the fertilizer was sold at $1,030 per ton, and now at $612 per ton.

“If a week ago we were going to buy 800,000 tons of urea, now we expect that when the operation is completed in the coming days, we will be able to get from 100,000 to 130,000 tons, much more. fertilizer for the same money,” he said.

So far, Midagri indicates that about 111,667 agricultural producers will benefit from this fertilizer, primarily those who grow rice, coffee, sweet potatoes, fruits and vegetables.

It is worth noting that the urea that will be distributed will not be given away farmersbut will be sold at a “social price”.

At the moment, they indicate that the commercial price of the fertilizer is SGD 4,835 per ton and SGD 215 for a 50 kg bag.

They rule out scarcity

Santisteban assures that, according to ENIS 2022, the landing plan for the new agricultural campaign increased by 4% and ruled out a possible shortage of food.

Although in some foods, such as potatoes and rice, the intention sowingnoted that this is not a huge amount.

“The average for the last five campaigns is 417,044 hectares, and in this campaign 408 thousand will be sown, the area of ​​rice will decrease by 2.1%. 2.1% will not generate the fact that there is no rice in the country, it may generate a slight increase in prices,” he commented.

According to dadnoted that the intention to cultivate decreased by 2.9%, since the average sown area is usually 341 thousand hectares, but it is expected that 331,165 hectares will be sown.