MARD instructs farmers to reduce fertilizer costs but still ensure crop productivity

The Plant Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has a policy to instruct farmers nation-wide to reduce fertilizer cost by technical solutions but still ensure the crop productivity.

The move came after fertilizer prices continued sharply increasing and the demand on fertilizer of local farmers also increased this year.

In response to the situation, Hoang Trung, head of the department said firstly, farmers must be guided to use the fertilizers in accordance with the process and ensure the principle of “five accuracies”.

For emergencies, the department would have an overall assessment and consult the ministry to report to the Government for considering supporting policies for the farmers, he said.

Trung also said that the department was assigned to be in charge of issues related to fertilizers, therefore, the department already took measures to adapt to the fertilizer prices’ increase.

The department had actively instructed localities on how to use the fertilizer in the most economical and effective way, he said.

On the basis of using fertilizer under the right process, the department suggested to reduce input cost for production so that the amount of fertilizer was reduced but crop productivity was still guaranteed, he added.

Another solution was to increase the productivity as well as use more organic fertilizers to partially replace chemical fertilizers, he said.

It was a plan that closely directed by the agricultural ministry in order to encourage farmers to use more organic fertilizers, which could be made from available materials such as agricultural by-products, livestock waste and household waste, and reduce dependence on chemical fertilizers, he said.

Moreover, the department has submitted to the agricultural ministry and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to strengthen the management of import and export of some fertilizers in order to support production and consumption activities in the country, the department said.

According to the department, it would co-ordinate with relevant agencies to review measures, ensuring a healthy competitive environment, as well as conduct more inspections to fight against counterfeiting and intellectual property infringement.

The department would also consult the Ministry of Finance to apply export tax on fertilizers in line with international commitments.

The department already planned to organize conferences and report to the Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to issue a policy of prioritizing fertilizers to serve the domestic market in order to meet the demand on domestic consumption and production.

Fertilize prices sharply increase

The prices of many fertilizers have reportedly increased by dozens of per cent this year, even nearly doubled compared to the previous same period last year.

Trung gave four main reasons causing the increase of the fertilizer prices.

The first reason was that the price of input materials increased very high. The raw materials for fertilizer production, including ammonia gas increased by more than 200 per cent while sulfur increased by more than 230 per cent, he said.

The second reason was that transportation costs were high due to the global impact of COVID-19 pandemic, for example, shipping firms raised the transportation cost to three or four times compared to last year, he said.

The third reason was that the world supply of fertilizer was reduced in many places because large factories had to suspend from operation due to the pandemic, he said.

Lastly, some countries that applied export-control policies or increased import, stockpiled and pre-ordered fertilizers in large quantities was also one of the reasons, he said.

"When Viet Nam integrates with the world economy, we are forced to comply with the rules of the market economy,” Trung said.

The increase of the world’s fertilizer prices would lead to the increase of domestic fertilizer prices, he said.

“It’s difficult to intervene in all the four reasons,” he said.

Data from the department, on average, the total capacity of domestic fertilizer production reaches 29.25 million tonnes per year, including 25.21 million tonnes of chemical fertilizer and 4.04 million tonnes of organic fertilizer per year.

In the first nine months of 2021, the capacity of domestic fertilizer production reached 5.6 million tonnes (including 3.9 million tonnes of chemical fertilizer and 1.76 million tonnes of organic fertilizer), an increase of 234,755 tonnes, equivalent to an increase of 4 per cent compared to the same period last year.

In term of import, in the first nine months of 2021, 3.88 million tonnes of fertilizer have been imported, an increase of 823,770 tonnes, equivalent to an increase of 26.88 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Only September 2021, the amount of imported fertilizer was 328,481 tonnes, an increase of 45,524 tonnes, equivalent to an increase of 16.1 per cent compared to last September.

Statistics of the department show that Viet Nam uses an average of 10 million tonnes of chemical fertilizer and about 16.88 million tonnes of organic fertilizers each year.