Rs. 2.5 billion transferred to farmers as cultivation subsidy for Yala Season

The Department of Agrarian Development has taken steps to transfer an amount of Rs.2.5 billion to the farmers' accounts as the cultivation subsidy provided to them for the 2024 Yala season.

Accordingly, more than Rs.2.5 billion has been spent on agriculture for 213,771 farmers. The amount of paddy cultivation that has been subsidized is 167,362 hectares, the Ministry of Agriculture and Plantation Industries said in a statement. 

It is expected that about 450,000 hectares of paddy fields will be planted in this year's yala season and the financial subsidy to be provided for all cultivated paddies will be around 7.5 billion rupees, according to the Department of Agrarian Development.

The Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industries, Mahinda Amaraweera submitted a Cabinet Paper to give Rs. 15,000 per hectare to every farmer who cultivates paddy in the 2024 yala season. The approval of the Cabinet has been received for that.

Accordingly, the Department of Agrarian Development has prepared a formal information and data system to account for this money for every farmer who has completed cultivation.

Meanwhile, information has been received that many farmers are applying only urea fertilizer to their paddy fields. The Department of Agriculture points out that due to non-application of MOP fertilizer, the paddy panicle as well as paddy seeds are not complete and the yield may be reduced due to non-application of MOP fertilizer.

Also, conditions such as yellowing of the paddy cultivation may arise due to the lack of root system strength due to non-application of MOP fertilizer.

Therefore, Minister Amaraweera is requesting the farmers to use the subsidy financial allocations provided by the government to use MOP fertilizer instead of urea fertilizer.

At present, the two government-owned fertilizer companies have distributed the required amount of MOP fertilizer all over the island and the private sector has also taken steps to supply MOP fertilizer without shortage.