Fertiliser price increase makes crude oil blush

THE spectacular rise in prices of crude oil and some food items may have hogged the limelight the world over, but the increase in prices of some fertilisers has left some other commodities pale in comparison. An official study on price movements of select food, energy and fertilisers shows that prices of some key fertilisers far outpaced the price hike in food or oil. Prices of rock phosphate, used in production of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and Muriate of Potash (MoP), have shot up by a mind boggling 707.69% by April 2008 over an average of January-March 2007.