Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said that the Government will issue vouchers for farmers to purchase fertilizer during the upcoming 2023/24 Maha Season.
The Minister was speaking while participating in a discussion held at the Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday (11).
The Government also took steps to distribute vouchers as a subsidy to farmers to purchase fertilizers including organic fertilizers for this Yala Season.
Accordingly, steps were taken to issue vouchers as a subsidy of Rs.20,000 per hectare and Rs.40,000 per two hectares to all farmers who cultivate paddy in the Yala Season.
The Department of Agricultural Development estimates that the total number of rice farmers in the country to be 1.2 million. Of these, vouchers were issued to 534,433 farmers as of July 4. In the Yala Season, the number of farmers who cultivated paddy was 717,000. Meanwhile 534,433 of them have been issued vouchers so far. The total value of these vouchers is Rs. 11 billion.
Minister Amaraweera states that due to practical problems in the distribution of vouchers, it was decided not to give vouchers from now on.
Instead, the Minister also said that it was decided to use the money in the farmer’s accounts to buy chemical fertilizers or organic fertilizers for the farmers in the next Maha Season.
The Minister said that although there are economic problems in the country, the Government will continue to provide concessions to reduce the production costs of farmers.
This could result in a surplus of rice in the country by the end of this year.
Amaraweera also said that all proposals presented by him as the Agriculture Minister in order to provide relief to the farmers were approved by President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
