Polish firm to set up five organic fertilizer plants with Rs.12.8 Bn investment | Daily News

Polish firm to set up five organic fertilizer plants with Rs.12.8 Bn investment

* Trincomalee, Anuradhapura, Moneragala and Hunupitiya selected
* 200,000 MT annual production

The Polish venture capital firm Regina Purpurea Fundus (RPF) has signed up to invest Rs. 12.8 billion to set up five Organic Fertilizer processing plants in Sri Lanka to power the agricultural revolution in the country. This investment would be made as a promising Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with the state-owned Colombo Commercial Fertilizers Ltd (CCFL).

RPF intends to design, finance, build and operate the large-scale project with a total investment of Rs.12.8 billion for a period of 20 years.

The operation will be strategically spread out across plants in Trincomalee, Moneragala, Anuradhapura (two plants) and Hunupitiya, supported by a state-of-the-art testing and certifying laboratory, and will contractually produce an annual capacity of 200,000 Metric Tons of organic fertilizer for the CCFL on an exclusive basis.

The organic waste input for production will be provided by the CCFL.

Polish entrepreneur Hubert Drabik, Founder and President of the Board of RPF said that the Sri Lankan Government has taken the right decision to move away from the use of chemical fertilizers. “We commend Sri Lanka’s bold approach to sustainably transition into organic agriculture under the visionary leadership of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and are grateful for this opportunity to establish preliminary parameters in what promises to be a mutually beneficial partnership.”

Agriculture State Minister Shasheendra Rajapaksa said that the decision to discourage use of chemical fertilizer was done subsequent to a lot of research at many levels.

“This decision may be unpopular right now but was taken thinking of the future and the sustainable growth of Sri Lanka’s agricultural sector. It is the right decision.”

He said that protests in this regard are done by vested groups who benefited by the use of harmful chemical fertilizers. “During the LTTE terror chemical fertilizer use was banned in the North as some of the substances and ingredients can be used to produce bombs and yet the farmers produced the best of fruit and vegetables by exclusively using organic fertilizer. This is the best example of the productive use of organic fertilizer. This is why we do not see any Northern farmers demanding and protesting for chemical fertilizer.”

This agreement sets in motion key strategic actions in the agriculture development policy of the country’s National Policy Framework (NPF) - ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’- which calls for the sector’s steady transition into organic fertilizer produced domestically within a few years.


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