TAPLEJUNG, May 9: At a time when the government is campaigning to make the nation self reliant on agriculture products by providing farmers with optimum assistance, the farmers of Taplejung have started to face acute shortage of chemical fertilizers.
At present, the farmers of Taplejung have been demanding 1000 tons of chemical fertilizers but they have been supplied with only seven tons.
This paints a clear picture of the condition of farmers in Taplejung.The government has provided grants for the farmers to procure fertilizers.
Under this plan, 15 cooperatives in Taplejung have got the approval to supply fertilizers.
However, only four of them have reportedly received fertilizers for distribution, that too, in meager amount. The remaining cooperatives are looking forward to receive fertilizers.
According to Dhirendra Mishra, agriculture officer at Cardamom Zone of Taplejung, three of the cooperatives had received 35 sacks of fertilizers each on Tuesday.
However, the cooperatives had initially refused to receive the fertilizers since such a meager amount of fertilizers would not even need a lorry for transportation.
Birtamod-based Agriculture Equipment Corporation and Salt Trading have been providing the fertilizers to the cooperatives.
Mishra added that about six tons of fertilizers that were received last month have not been distributed in the district. About forty percent of the farmers were satisfied by the distribution of 450 tons of chemical fertilizers in the previous year.
However, only seven metric tons of fertilizers have made it to the district in the last one month.