Senior administrators predict shortage of locally produced rice

Text and picture by PRIYAN DE SILVA 

The Sri Lanka Administrative Service Association (SLASA) has warned that there will be a severe shortage of locally produced rice during the next two cultivation seasons. The revelation was made by the Association’s Deputy President, Ranjith Ariyarathna, while presenting the SLASA’s proposals for economic and social resurgence of the nation at the Mahaweli Centre auditorium on Monday (18).

The Sri Lanka Administrative Service is made up of officials in the top echelons of Sri Lanka’s Public Service. As a union, the SLASA is capable of minimising corruption and bringing any corrupt government to its proper senses, it has claimed.

The SLASA believes that wrong economic, and financial policies and a number of administrative lapses are the root cause of the present crisis in Sri Lanka.

Ariyarathna pointed out that what the intellectuals proposed was a green agriculture policy but what the lawmakers stubbornly implemented was organic agriculture!

 Ariyarathna pointed out that the annual consumption of rice per year in Sri Lanka was 240,000 MT but due to the government’s decision to ban the import of chemical fertiliser and pesticides there had been a 50% drop in production and in addition due to the losses suffered in the previous cultivation seasons the extent of land which would be cultivated with paddy would be around 50% to 60% of the arable land.

At current market price it would cost 250 million USD to import rice to meet the shortfall in the supply of it, Ariyaratne said, quoting figures obtained from the National Fertiliser Secretariat the nation’s annual requirement of chemical fertilisers were 545,983 tonnes of Urea, 163,928 tonnes of TSP and 317,743 tonnes of MOP.

The average cost of importing the above in the past was Rs. 55 billion and would be much more now, the association said.

The SLASA has come up with short, medium and long term proposals, which, if implemented, would help put Sri Lanka’s agricultural sector back to normal by 2030. The short term measures would be implemented from 1st May 2022 to 31 December 2022 while the medium term proposals would be implemented in 2023 and 2024 and the long term proposals from 2025 to 2030.