Organic fertiliser to reach farmers in October
Sri Lanka’s two state fertiliser companies on Thursday signed an agreement with the Chinese fertiliser supplier for the import of inputs used to manufacture organic fertiliser scheduled for distribution among farmers from October.
The agreement to import organic inputs was signed by both state companies, Lakpohora and the Ceylon Fertiliser Company with the supplier Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group Co., Ltd., Additional Secretary of the State Ministry of Fertiliser Mahesh Gammanpila told the Business Times.
In this respect, stocks of 96,000 MT of organic fertiliser inputs in granular form containing 10 per cent of Nitrogen and 3,000 MT of amino acid containing 15 per cent of Nitrogen will be imported for the forthcoming Maha season, he said.
He noted that the imported stocks will be used to manufacture organic fertiliser that will then be distributed among the paddy farmers during the first week of October.
Currently, the authorities are carrying out tests on the efficacy of the inputs that will help identify if there is a need to use additional fertiliser in liquid form. But this testing will be carried out within a period of about two weeks.
This would be a risk since agricultural experts point out ideally the test trials should be carried out at least during one season but this is not possible at this stage, experts note.
Mr. Gammanpila stated that if there is a drop in the yields through the application of the organic fertiliser provided to the farmers then they will be given additional amounts of nutrients to the paddy field to increase the yields.
The government has procured this product from the Chinese supplier based on the recommendation by agriculture experts, Agriculture Department Director General Dr. Ajantha De Silva and Technical Evaluation Committee Chairman Prof. P.I. Yapa.
The literature received during the procurement stage indicates that based on testing in China the yield will be 12 MT per hectare. Sri Lanka’s average yield at present is 4.2 MT per hectare, Mr. Gammanpila said.
He explained that the requirement today is to bring down new knowledge to produce fertiliser within Sri Lanka.
“We must ask farmers to produce their own compost at least 500 kg per hectare,” he said.
This time the authorities will be providing the organic fertiliser to the farmers free which would normally cost more than Rs.35,000 per hectare, he noted.
Sri Lanka already has about 37 organic fertiliser manufacturers out of which 17 are certified for the Maha season paddy cultivation but only 10 of them can readily provide this for 52,000 hectares of paddy field. The rest will be provided by the state fertiliser companies, it was noted.