By: Chandrashekar Bhat
SRI Lanka’s government on Thursday (5) walked back the lifting of an import ban on most chemical fertilisers over fears of political fallout, despite warnings from farmers of food shortages and severe damage to the massive tea industry.
The south Asian nation has been struggling with a cash crunch worsened by the pandemic, with the central bank imposing sweeping import bans since March last year to reduce the outflow of foreign currency.
The ban on chemical fertilisers – widely used in tea and rice cultivation – was opposed by farmers who staged protests after reporting failing vegetable crops as existing stocks began to run out in recent weeks.
Finance minister Basil Rajapaksa, the younger brother of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had lifted the ban on Tuesday (3).
The president had earlier said the policy would help Sri Lankan agriculture become “100-per cent organic”.
In a briefing to reporters in Colombo, secretary to the ministry of agriculture, Udith Jayasinghe, said there had actually been “no change in the government policy shift to organic fertiliser”.
“Some plant nutrients rich in nitrogen will be allowed under strict licensing.”
Urea fertiliser, which will remain banned, is widely used in the $1.25 billion (£900 million) tea industry as well as in the farming of rice, the staple food.
Jayasinghe said farmers would have to use organic substitutes.
Sri Lanka is among the world’s largest exporters of tea. Ceylon tea is valued for its high quality and flavour.
A report by a group of experts warned last month of substantial crop losses and food shortages unless chemical fertilisers were provided urgently.
A member of a presidential committee that studied the transition from chemical to organic fertiliser, Herman Gunaratne, said the sudden shift could have catastrophic consequences, especially for tea.
“We risk losing our international markets for tea,” Gunaratne said.
Tea plantation executive Sanath Gurunada said over the weekend that the shortages would be felt fully by October.
“For the moment we have stocks (of fertiliser), but it will run out in about a month or two. After that we will not get the crop that we used to harvest,” he said.
“With a decline in the crop, our foreign exchange earnings will also go down.”
