Massive loss from SL’s hasty shift to organic farming
Sri Lanka’s unplanned shift to organic farming from chemical based agriculture practices has triggered a man-made crop disaster and incurred a massive loss of around US$1.04 billion, official provisional estimates and data of trading economic indicator models showed.
The total cost (fertiliser and rice imports) from the government’s attempts to transform the country’s chemical fertiliser farming to organic farming was $1.84 billion whereas all this cost could have been saved if the authorities had allowed the import of chemical fertiliser, spending only $400 million, according to a Finance Ministry source.
Sri Lanka is grappling with a severe food crisis. Food prices have skyrocketed and people are suffering in food inflation leading to potential economic crisis, an economic expert said.
The Finance Ministry and the Central Bank have to provide foreign exchange to import rice and essential food commodities when the country is struggling to find dollars, official sources said.
The total cost for rice imports will be $180 million and if the government had to import vegetables and fruits to meet any shortage, then the total food commodity import bill will be in the region of over $650 million, the ministry official said.
It has been planned to spend Rs. 3.8 billion to purchase organic fertiliser from local producers during the current Maha cultivation season.
The cost to import nano nitrogen liquid fertiliser from India is $44.2 million while another sum of $63.7 million has been paid to import 30,000 tons of potassium chloride fertiliser up to now.
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