Damascus-SANA
Providing the agricultural sector’s needs for fertilizers Among the challenges facing the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform and farmers at the same time is the inability of the public sector to produce the necessary quantities of this substance due to the exposure of most fertilizer production plants to sabotage as a result of terrorism and the difficulty of importing them as a result of the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Syria.
More than 60 percent of the market and agricultural sector needs of traditional simple fertilizers such as superphosphate are produced locally, but the problem lies in not securing sufficient quantities of nitrogen fertilizer, according to Hadi al-Ibrahim, owner of a fertilizer production plant in Adra Industrial City.
Al-Ibrahim explained in an interview with the representative of SANA that some fertilizers are not produced in Syria, such as potassium nitrate, so we have to import them by submitting import licenses for the benefit of the Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade, pointing out that import constitutes a great burden on the state, the local product and the farms at the same time as it passes through many episodes and faces many Of the problems, difficulties and delays due to the coercive measures, which in turn contribute to a significant increase in the costs that the farmer cannot bear.
According to Al-Ibrahim, the local market is covered by super phosphate through agents distributed in the governorates, but the supply to the public sector is carried out through the Foreign Trade Corporation through tenders, and the factory on which the tender is located supplies the required quantities to the Corporation, which in turn delivers them to the Agricultural Bank for distribution to farmers at a price lower than the prices of market.
Al-Ibrahim indicated that some government institutions contracted last year with importers to import quantities of urea fertilizer, but the blockade and unjust coercive measures prevented it from entering Syria, indicating that it is in the process of establishing a factory to produce unconventional organic chemical fertilizers with the aim of stopping importing them and providing foreign exchange for the state.
Director of Land and Water at the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Dr. Jalal Ghazaleh, revealed that the actual need for urea, cotton, sugar beet and tobacco crops in exceptional circumstances amounts to 300,000 tons, and super phosphate 200,000 tons, indicating that the current availability in the Agricultural Bank of urea fertilizer amounts to 29,000 tons. 500 tons of superphosphate and 38,000 tons, stressing that the entire need for one acre of superphosphate fertilizer will be secured for the wheat and sugar beet crops, and 25 percent of the need for one acre of nitrogen fertilizer during the planting period.
Ghazaleh said that "the second batch of nitrogen fertilizer will be distributed according to the available balances in the warehouses of the Agricultural Cooperative Bank or through import, knowing that the reality of the nitrogen fertilizer will be evaluated early next year and will be distributed according to the agricultural plan in batches, while the entire quantities of super phosphate are drawn from the private sector."
Ismail Ambassador