Even after reducing use of urea, farmers able to get good yield

About 450 bags of unused urea worth ₹5.4 lakh returned

Ibrahimpur village in Narayanaraopet mandal of Siddipet district, once in the news by attracting several VVIPs from across the country for its innovation on community activities, is in the news once again. This time it has reduced the use of urea to the best possible extent. As much as 450 bags of urea worth ₹5.4 lakh given for the village was unused and sent back .

Take the case of Kumbh Nagesh Reddy, a farmer from the village. He is having about 4.2 acres of land cultivating paddy. Farmers usually use higher quantity of urea to get bumper harvest with a staunch feeling that additional urea will give strength to the crop for better yield. Nagesh Reddy was no exception. He was accustomed to using as much as nine bags (405 kilograms) of urea in his field every season for paddy cultivation.

However, his perspective has changed for the better. In the present season, he used only half of what he used to. The urea consumption was reduced to five bags (225 kilograms) as against the previous nine bags. He used urea in three phases – first basal dose of 15 kilograms in the first week after rains, followed by another 15 kilograms at tillering stage and third dose of last 15 kilograms in the panicle stage per acre. With this, the urea he saved was worth ₹4,800 as per open market rate of ₹1,200 per bag while farmers are getting each bag of urea at a subsidized price of ₹280.