Fertiliser analysis lab to come up in Nellore

Nellore: For ensuring quality supply of fertilizers, the state government is planning to establish a fertilizer analysing laboratory in Nellore shortly. This laboratory is meant for testing quality of fertilizers and to take stringent action against erring dealers as per the provisions of Fertilizer Control Order, 1985.

In fact, there are three labs in the state at Bapatla in Guntur, Anantapur and at Tadepalligudem in West Godavari with an annual analysing capacity of 3,500 fertilizer samples per lab. Further, the state government is planning to set up three more labs at Ongole, Nellore and Amaravati.

As per data, 35.31 lakh MT of fertilizers consumed against 38.11 lakh MT in 2016-17. The consumption was reduced to a quantity of 24 kg per hectare compared with 2015-16.

The fertilizer requirement planned for 2017-18 is 35.56 lakh MT. Experts in agriculture say chemical fertilizers will give fillip to increase yields instantly but due to mere use of chemical fertilizers without organic/biofertilizers, soils become unproductive or less remunerative.

So, the agriculture department has considered other ways to reduce or minimise the chemical fertilizer to achieve optimum yields for the unit of fertilizer applied.

But, the problem comes to agriculture department with quality of fertilizers being supplied to farmers. Fertilizer was declared as essential commodity and was a critical input in crop production.

The Fertilizer Control Order, 1985 and Fertilizer Movement Control Order, 1973 regulate the quality and movement aspects of the fertilizers ensuring supply of quality fertilizers to the farming community. Now, the department is focusing on such aspects and the proposed laboratories are going to be established in the three places shortly.

“The laboratory (bio and organic fertilizers) would shortly be established in Nellore with Rs 1.40 crore. The main of the lab is to ensure quality of fertilizers. So, officials collect samples from dealers and check their quality before distributing to farmers,” said agriculture minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy.

As part of efforts to curb low-quality fertilizers, officials conduct pre-season inspections by internal squads for verification of stocks with licensed fertilizer dealers to ensure quality as per guidelines of FCO, 1985. Licences of erring dealers will also be cancelled. They also take up monitoring at vulnerable check posts in coordination with revenue and police departments especially in border areas to check movement of fertilizers.