Agriculture blunder needs reckoning
The Department of Agriculture (DOA) says there is hardly any time to import fertiliser for the next Yala season. As a result the government needs to turn to the private sector to purchase some of the already imported stocks of fertiliser available in the country. Experts on the other hand insist someone needs to be held accountable.
Although there is no circular issued by the authorities to turn to chemical fertiliser use by farmers, DOA Director General Dr. Ajantha De Silva told the Business Times that they have been asked to provide information on the requirements for chemical fertiliser for this Yala season for paddy alone.
In this respect, he noted that already some of the private sector fertiliser importers have chemical fertiliser available in the country and these could be used by the government to be distributed among the farmers.
He explained that the modalities in terms of availability and distribution will be worked out by the Agriculture Ministry through the relevant Minister.
Guidelines in the use of both organic and chemical requirements have been issued by the DOA, he said.
Paddy cultivation will require fertiliser for about 500,000 hectares of paddy for which sufficient water is available, he said, adding importing fertiliser from any country will take at least three weeks. In this respect, the Fertiliser Secretariat and the Agriculture Ministry are trying to import the fertiliser as soon as possible. He noted that the government has already provided some organic fertiliser to the farmers and the DOA has to now supply only the deficit.
Meanwhile, Peradeniya Crop Science Snr. Prof. Buddhi Marambe reacting to President Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s statement that they will revert to the use of chemical fertiliser said: “It’s like a small kid admitting his error”. He noted that this was being echoed repeatedly by agriculture experts for the past one year and now it’s too late.
Sri Lanka lost one of the best seasons the country had during the last Maha season and now “we learnt a bitter lesson”, he said. In fact he noted that somebody needs to be held accountable adding that this reversal is a sign of desperation the President is currently going through in the face of country-wide protests against the government.