Government blamed for low urea tablet use by farmers
Government blamed for low urea tablet use by farmers
JAKARTA (JP): An economic consultancy group blames the
reluctance of farmers to use the newly-introduced urea fertilizer
tablets on the government, for its failure to adopt friendly and
persuasive means to introduce the fertilizers.
Rizal Ramly, the director of the Econit Advisory Group, said
last week that instead of using farmer-friendly techniques, the
government has compelled farmers to replace prilled, or granular,
urea fertilizer -- with which they have been familiar for the
last two decades -- with tablet urea.
So far, he said, this approach has only caused farmers to
reject the new product since they were unwilling accept drastic
changes to their traditional ways of farming.
Rizal compared the government's present means of effecting
change unfavourably with those used in the 1970s, when urea
fertilizer was first introduced to farmers.
That time, he said, prices of urea on the domestic market were
slashed down to 40 percent or 50 percent of those on the
international market. Intensive guidance and training as well as
subsidized loans were also provided to farmers.
As a result, rice production increased from 20 million tons in
1970 to 40 million tons in 1989.
Now, Rizal said, the government tends to use coercive
techniques towards farmers, with an approach similar to those
used during the colonial times.
At the same time, farmers are suffering a shortage of granular
urea, which is strange because Indonesia has become a net
exporter of the product.
For the first time in the past two decades, there were
problems of distribution. In fact, urea fertilizer started
disappearing from the market, Rizal was quoted by the Kompas
daily as saying.
Tablets
According to Econit, the government's efforts to popularize
the use of urea tablets started in 1992. At that time, 15
regencies were chosen for the government's pilot project.
The government said that urea tablets, although about 13
percent costlier than prilled urea, can be used more efficiently
because they need to be "planted" only once before the rice is
harvested.
The tablets can save up to 36 percent of the urea needed for
one hectare of rice field. Thus, only 199 kg of tablet urea is
needed per hectare, compared to 310 kg of the granular urea.
Urea tablets are also said to help increase rice production by
13 percent or 0.7 tons per hectare and farmers' income by Rp
280,357 (US$122).
In the 1995/1996 planting season, 53 regencies covering 2.1
million hectares of rice fields -- which had the most fertile
soil in Indonesia -- were included in the project.
The project proved successful, Rizal said, but could not be
used as an indicator of the government's achievement in
popularizing the new fertilizer.
But Rizal considered the government's calculations too
optimistic. He said they failed to add a new cost factor, which
was the labor cost needed to "plant" the fertilizer tablets.
Urea tablets, Rizal said, are produced by PT Ariyo Seto
Wijoyo, together with the state-owned fertilizer manufacturing
plant, PT Pusri.
Ariyo Seto, he said, has a 75 percent stake in the urea tablet
processing units, of which it is also the manager. The remaining
25 percent is owned by village cooperatives (KUD).
Ariyo Seto currently has 122 tablet processing machines
located in 53 regencies. It imposes a processing fee of Rp 35 per
kg of tablets and receives Rp 25 in profit for each kilogram
produced.
Rizal estimated that Ariyo Seto's annual profits from the
production of 82,550 tons of urea tablets amount to Rp 22.95
billion, of which Rp 13.39 billion is derived from production
fees and made up to Rp 22.95 billion by the marketing margin.
The current shortage of granular fertilizer, Rizal said, is a
result of the government's orders to the 53 regencies to use urea
tablets.
He considered the shortage a "phantom shortage", not a real
one, since Indonesia's fertilizer production exceeds domestic
demand.
He said the phantom shortage occurred, firstly, because the
conversion of granular urea into tablets was not followed by an
addition to the supply of granular urea. Secondly, it was caused
by an increase in the number of "delivery orders", involving
traders who bought fertilizer at village cooperatives and sold to
farmers at higher prices.
Thirdly, the fertilizer provided in the 53 regencies were only
od the tablet-type, which were unfamiliar to farmers, while the
granular type "disappeared".
And lastly, because Pusri recently changed its extra stock
requirement from a month's worth of fertilizer supplies to only
two weeks.
Rizal pointed out that using urea tablets would have a
positive impact on agriculture, but he suggested the government
take more persuasive, farmer-friendly means of propagating the
technique. (pwn)