Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera yesterday stated that President Ranil Wickremesinghe had instructed him to provide farmers with the opportunity to buy all fertilizers at a competitive price.
The minister was speaking at a press conference yesterday regarding the progress of all fertilizer distributions including urea fertilizer in the 2023 Yala season.
“The 24,503 metric tonnes of urea fertilizer have been distributed across the country on May24. Also, in the first week of next month, another 31,250 metric tons of urea fertilizer shipment is scheduled to arrive at Colombo port”, he said.
He said that 562 Agrarian Service Centers all over the country, except for one Agrarian Service Center in Matara, there is enough urea fertilizer in all the other centers. Apart from this, the amount of urea fertilizer available to the private sector is 8,760 metric tonnes.
Also, there is sufficient amount of MOP fertilizer and the free manure has been distributed to all the farmers by now. Therefore, it is planned to provide all the fertilizers to the farmers without any shortage and even if a bundle of urea fertilizer is currently sold for 10,000 rupees, the minister also mentioned that steps will be taken to reduce the price of urea with the stock of urea fertilizer received next month.
The Minister also requested that farmers apply the recommended amount of MOP fertilizer to their paddy cultivations and use the vouchers given as fertilizer subsidy by the government to use at least 50 percent of it to buy MOP fertilizer.
If MOP fertilizer is not applied, it will definitely affect the yield of paddy. Therefore, the minister also requested to give more priority to the application of MOP fertilizer in paddy fields. The government has spent 10,000 million rupees on fertilizer subsidy vouchers this Yala season. Also, in the year 2023, the government has allocated Rs.56,000 million only for the fertilizer subsidy. The Minister also emphasized that President Ranil Wickremesinghe has given his approval that he is ready to provide more financial allocations to provide relief to the farmers.
The minister said that all these measures are taken by the government to reduce the production costs of the farmers, thereby giving the consumer an opportunity to buy rice at a lower price in the market.
DrJagath Perera, Chairman of both Ceylon Fertilizer Company and Commercial Fertilizer Company, and an official of the Department of Agrarian Services also participated in this event.
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