Insurgents responsible for fertiliser price hike —Ogbeh

THE Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, on Thursday, said the recent hike in prices of fertiliser across the country was as a result of the lingering security challenges in the country.

Ogbeh said the terrorists use urea to make explosives they use in carrying out their dangerous activities.

The Minister disclosed this in Abuja at the Feed the Future Nigeria Implementing Partner’s Policy Dialogue Series, with the theme “Bringing Balanced Fertilisers to the Nigerian Market: Policy and Investment Implications of Soil and Crop-Specific Fertiliser Blend-based Technologies.

Ogbeh who was represented by the Coordinator of the National Programme for Food Security, Professor Victor Chude, however, said that efforts were being put in place by the government to move past the hurdle through encouraging local blending of about one million metric tons of NPK.

According to him “the current hike in price of fertiliser is as a result of security concerns as criminal elements are using its components to make bombs and other explosives.

“Government is already encouraging local blending through the Presidential Special Fertiliser Programme for local blending of one million metric tons of NPK blends.

“We are encouraging blenders to add secondary and micro-nutrients (SMNs) to their blends to satisfy the needs of crops and soils in different agro-exologies.”

The Minister further added that the government will rise above the present funding constraints for the industry to make fertiliser abundant for the farmers.

According to the Executive Summary of the Programme, “Nigeria’s policy direction for fertiliser use in the past two years has been towards the use of soil and Crop-Specific fertilizer blends to increase productivity, thus moving away from dependence on NPK 15-15-15 which currently represents 70 per cent of all NPK fertilisers used in Nigeria.”