USD 105 mn from WB for urea purchases for coming Maha cultivation season

By Ifham Nizam

The World Bank had agreed to provide USD 105 mn to purchase urea for paddy cultivation during the Maha season, Minister of Agriculture, Wildlife and Wildlife Conservation Mahinda Amaraweera, said yesterday.

Speaking at an awareness programme at the launch of the ‘Api Wawamu – Rata Dinawamu’ Cultivation War in the Hambantota District, the Minister said: “In the last quarter of 2021, I announced that there would be a food shortage in our country. Although I was the then Minister of Environment, I even submitted a Cabinet paper calling for the immediate launch of a cultivation campaign to counter the coming famine.”

The Minister said that the situation was so bad that the country had been compelled to import large stocks of rice this year.

He said Sri Lanka had not imported rice in January of any year. Most of the rice was imported in the last quarter of a year. But, for the first time since January 2022, rice had been imported.

The amount of rice imported to the country from January to May 2022 was 338,737 metric tonnes. A sum of USD 92 million or Rs. 34,392 million had been spent for the purpose. 97% of that rice was imported from India. It would cost USD 105 million to provide fertiliser to farmers here, he said.

“But we will have to spend the same amount for the next six months as we spent USD 95 million for six months to import rice. That means we need at least USD 200 million to import rice. That amount is sufficient to import all types of fertilisers, such as urea, MOP, TSP, SSP. Our country needs another 800,000 metric tonnes of rice for public consumption in the future. Even if the Yala harvest is a failure we should aim to get at least 50%.

He believes that Sri Lanka also have the potential to obtain 65,000 metric tonnes of urea from India for the current Yala paddy cultivation. The Ministry has also introduced 13 alternative crops for cultivation, if the anticipated Indian urea is not delivered.