Courtesy The Island An open letter to Director General of Agrarian Services I make reference to this subject, which is directly affecting the food security and safety, as well as the national security of our country in the future. Rice, being our citizens’ staple food over many centuries, plays an important role in our country’s […]

Courtesy The Daily Mirror The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) is to charge a fine from the owners of unutilised land within the Colombo City. This was one of the major proposals of the CMC budget which was approved recently. As per the budget the expected revenue for the year 2023 through this exercise is Rs. […]

Courtesy Adaderana The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with funding through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), will distribute 36,000 metric tonnes of Triple Super Phosphate (TSP) fertilizer to all paddy farmers in Sri Lanka through the Ministry of Agriculture. The amount of TSP provided per farmer will be […]

By P. K. Balachandran courtesy  Eurasia Review High production costs, poor practices and low labor productivity call for a paradigm shift in the management system  Sri Lanka’s tea industry is in crisis. The cost of production of the brew that cheers” is higher and labor productivity is lower in Sri Lanka as compared to other tea-producing […]

Courtesy Adaderana The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has granted Rs. 8 billion to Sri Lanka for the benefit of paddy farmers, the President’s Media Division (PMD) says. The grant comes at the request of President Ranil Wickremesinghe. Accordingly, small-scale paddy farmers cultivating lands to the extent of one hectare or less will receive an allowance […]

Courtesy Adaderana In order to switch to organic fertilisers, Sri Lanka yet again relied on a Chinese company, only to get deceived in the end as the organic fertilizer supplied could not pass the two rounds of the National Plant Quarantine Services (NPQS) test due to high contamination.  Moreover, the Chinese firm also pressurized Sri […]

By MAHINDA PANAPITIYA Irrigation Engineer who has worked for Mahaweli Project since 80s Courtesy The Island As originally planned, the present phase of the Mahaweli Project should be focused on social and economic development of the families settled in Mahaweli areas. It could be done by promoting food production in a sustainable way, to gain […]

Courtesy Adaderana The gazette notification pertaining to the lifting of the ban imposed on the import of the herbicide Glyphosate has been sent to the Government Printer, says the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Gunadasa Samarasinghe. The Minister of Agriculture had decided to lift the ban on Glyphosate following inquiries made from various sectors […]

By Sugeeswara Senadhira Ceylon Today Colombo, November 14 (Ceylon Today): China concluded an important International Forum on Hybrid Rice Assistance and Global Food Security in Beijing last weekend, where the focus was on China’s hybrid rice varieties that could revolutionize global food production and ensure food security. Virtually addressing the Forum Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena […]

Courtesy Adaderana Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena emphasizes that since the government has instructed to give the government lands to the farmers of the villages for cultivation in accordance with circular measures, no government official should interfere with it. The Prime Minister mentioned this during the distribution of goods from the Parliamentary Decentralized Fund of Mr. […]

Courtesy Adaderana The special audit report by National Audit Office on the controversial procurement of 96,000 metric tons of organic fertilizer from a Chinese supplier reveals that the Sri Lankan government has incurred a lost to the tune of Rs. 1,382 million in the process. The report, issued in August 2022, also notes that all officials responsible […]

Chandre Dharmawardana I have gone thorough the following U-tube video and I am sad to see this kind of unsubstantiated claims misleading the public. This is just one of many. [ටවුම මැද්දේ වගා කරන, ගල් පොළොවේ කුඹුරු කරන, ගොවි රජාගේ විශ්වකර්ම වැඩ I urge the Sri Lankan scientific community to not to ignore this sort […]

Courtesy Hiru News USAID Administrator Samantha Power announces an additional USD 40 million to Sri Lanka to help farmers purchase fertilizer and other vital agricultural inputs

By Ted Nordhaus, the executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, and Saloni Shah, a food and agriculture analyst at the Breakthrough Institute. Courtesy  Foreign Policy.com A nationwide experiment is abandoned after producing only misery. Faced with a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis, Sri Lanka called off an ill-conceived national experiment in organic agriculture this winter. Sri Lankan […]

Courtesy The Daily Mirror The Finance Ministry has lifted the import ban on the popular weedicide glyphosate with effect from August 5 while allowing glyphosate imports into the country subject to import control license requirement. According to the Gazette Extraordinary No 2291/44 signed by President Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilisation and […]

Courtesy Outlook Sri Lanka’s army established its Green Agriculture Steering Committee (GASC) to supplement and promote the food security programme in the country facing worst economic crisis. The Sri Lanka Army will take part in a farming drive aimed at cultivating over 1,500 acres of barren or abandoned state land to multiply food production and […]

Courtesy The South China Morning Post Officials granted leave for one working day a week and ‘provided with the facilities to engage in agricultural activities in their backyards’, cabinet said The country’s unprecedented economic downturn has left staple foods in short supply and 4 out of 5 people in the nation of 22 million were […]

Courtesy Hiru News On June 13, U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung attended the signing ceremony for a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Sri Lankan Department of Agriculture, for a $27 million project that aims to double the milk production of Sri Lankan dairy farmers participating in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food […]

Courtesy Hiru News The Minister of Agriculture Mahinda Amaraweera says that they will start a process to acquire all paddy lands that have not been cultivated and abandoned.  These lands will be acquired for a period of 5 years in order to cultivate suitable food crops.

Sugath Kulatunga It is gratifying to see that the grow more food campaign is on the move. The media has something more than the Aragalaya to talk about. But it seems to be ad hoc and not well planned as a national campaign. We have over 20 distinct agroclimatic zones with their distinctive advantages. Of […]

Courtesy The Daily Mirror The Cabinet had approved to import 150,000 metric tons of Urea, 45,000 metric tons of Muriate of Potash (MOP) and 36,000 metric tons of Triple Super Phosphate (TSP) fertilizers for paddy cultivation for the 2022/23 Maha season. The Ceylon Fertilizer Company Limited and Colombo Commercial Fertilizer Company Limited to import the […]

Courtesy The Economic Times Both international and domestic buyers have rejected a series of tea consignments due to the presence of pesticides and chemicals beyond permissible limits, Indian Tea Exporters Association (ITEA) chairman Anshuman Kanoria said on Friday. Filling up the vacuum created by crisis-hit Sri Lanka in the global market, Tea Board is eyeing […]

 Sugath Kulatunga The Prime Minister is predicting a severe famine by August this year and has proposed an urgent food production drive. There have been many such drives previously which fizzled out quickly. This time it could be different. There will be real hunger and it will not be possible to import food stuff from […]

By P. K. Balachandran Courtesy Eurasia Review Studies reveal that by re-orienting the country’s agricultural policies and adopting modern technologies, the worst can be averted Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has sounded an extremely grim warning of a food crisis in the island beginning in August and stretching to March 2023. It will be aggravated […]

Mr. D R Kanchana The Secretary Agriculture Graduate’s Association of the Sri Lanka Agriculture Service මෙරට තුළ ඇති වී ඇති ආර්ථික අර්බුදය හමුවේ ශ්‍රී ලාංකිකයන් ලෙස අප  ආහාර සුරක්ෂිතතාව” පිළිබඳව වෙනදාට වඩා වැඩි වශයෙන් කතා බහ කරන කාලයක් නිර්මාණය වී ඇත. එක්සත් ජාතීන්ගේ ආහාර හා කෘෂිකර්ම සංවිධානයට (FAO) අනුව, සියළුම මිනිසුන්ට ඔවුන්ගේ ආහාර අවශ්‍යතාවයන් සපුරාලීමට ප්‍රමාණවත් පරිදි සෑම […]

High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in New Delhi යල කන්නයේ පොහොර අවශ්‍යතාවය කඩිනමින් ඉන්දියාවෙන් සැපයෙන තීරණයක්ඉදිරි යල වගා කන්නයේ වී වගාව සඳහා අවශ්‍ය යූරියා සැපයීම පිළිබඳව සාකච්ඡා කර තීරණ ගැනීම සඳහා නවදිල්ලියේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා මහ කොමසාරිස් මිලින්ද මොරගොඩ මහතා අද (12) ඉන්දියාවේ ජාතික පොහොර දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ ලේකම් රාෙජ්ෂ් කුමාර් චතුර්වේදි මහතා හමුවිය. මෙම කන්නයේ වී සඳහා යූරියා […]

The Academics’ Movement to Safeguard Agriculture (AMSA) in Sri Lanka The Academics’ Movement to Safeguard Agriculture (AMSA) in Sri Lanka expresses grave concern about the potential impact of the current national crisis on the agriculture sector in Sri Lanka. First, we vehemently condemn the brutal assault launched against the peaceful protesters in front of Galle […]

The Academics’ Movement to Safeguard Agriculture in Sri Lanka (AMSA-Sri Lanka) The Academics’ Movement to Safeguard Agriculture in Sri Lanka (AMSA-Sri Lanka) proposes thefollowing short-, medium- and long-term measures to address immediate and medium- to longtermthreats faced by Sri Lankan Agriculture.Immediate threat:An imminent threat of widespread crop failure in the next two seasons leading to […]

The Academics’ Movement to Safeguard Agriculture in Sri Lanka (AMSA-Sri Lanka) The Academics’ Movement to Safeguard Agriculture in Sri Lanka (AMSA-Sri Lanka) proposes thefollowing short-, medium- and long-term measures to address immediate and medium- to longtermthreats faced by Sri Lankan Agriculture.Immediate Threat:There is an imminent threat of widespread crop failure in the current (2022) Yala […]

Courtesy Daily Mirror AFP: Crisis-struck Sri Lanka’s vital tea exports have dropped to their lowest level in 23 years, official figures showed yesterday, hit by a fertiliser ban and the war in Ukraine.Tea is the island nation’s biggest export commodity, bringing in about US $ 1.3 billion annually before the current economic downturn, the worst […]