Lanka will be self-sufficient in big onions by 2015: Basil
Big onion imports to Sri Lanka will stop by 2015 when the country becomes self-sufficient in big onions, Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa said.
The ministry said quoting the minister that the self-sufficiency programme will help the country save Rs. 6000 million in foreign-exchange spent annually on importing 200,000 metric tonnes of big onions.
Minister Rajapaksa said this at a meeting held at his ministry office in connec-
The self-sufficiency programme will help the country save Rs. 6000 million in foreign-exchange spent annually
tion with the setting up of a task force for making the country self-sufficient in potatoes, big onions and red onions.The Economic Development Minister said that cultivators should be encouraged and motivated to grow these food items and added that the coun- try was already self-sufficient in sorghum, paddy and ulundu.
He recalled that in the past, imperialists had destroyed paddy cultivation in order to break the will power of the people. The present government had today revived it and made the country self-sufficient.
Sri Lanka’s annual potato requirement is 130,000 metric tonnes. Of this amount 40 percent is locally produced while 60 percent is imported. Of the country’s requirement of red onions 93 percent is locally grown. Since the end of the anti-terrorist war red onion cultivation had gone up rapidly. In the Trincomalee District 11,772 metric tons of red onions were grown in 981 hectares in 2012 whereas only 3077 metric tons of red onions were grown in 280 hectares in the same district in 2006.