Agriculture Minister to announce mechanism to distribute organic fertilizer for Maha season today

• Govt. to import organic fertilizer from India after sample tests proved successful 
• Govt. maintains rejecting fertilizer from a Chinese company hasn’t strained relationship with China

Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage is expected to announce a mechanism for organic fertilizer distribution among paddy farmers in a bid to address the fertilizer shortage for the Maha Season cultivation following the ban on chemical fertilizer imports. 

After selecting China-based Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group Co. Ltd. to supply organic fertilizers, the government had to drop its plans to import organic fertilizer from the firm with laboratory tests detecting the presence of harmful microorganisms in it.

Answering a media query as to how the government would secure necessary fertilizer stocks for farmers,  the Cabinet Co-Spokesperson and the Minister of Mass Media, Dullas Alahapperuma said that Minister Aluthgamage  would unveil the mechanism for organic fertilizer distribution for paddy farmers today. According to the Agriculture Ministry, this decision to suspend organic fertilizer imports from China was reached following tests carried out by local testing agencies, including the National Plant Quarantine Service (NPQS), which has confirmed the presence of harmful bacteria.

However, the Chinese Embassy in Colombo in a recent statement defended the Chinese firm while claiming that the tests carried out by NPQS lacked scientific basis.

“NPQS claimed that the sample contained harmful bacteria including Erwinia, after only 3 days of test & analysis. However according to the International Plant Protection Convention, it will take at least six (6) days to detect Erwinia. 

The hasty conclusion made by NPQS is lack of scientific basis. As such, the decision made by the Flag of Sri Lanka authorities to reject Seawin’s organic fertilizer based on the NPQS report is not only questionable but also causing great financial loss to the company,” the Chinese Embassy in a statement said.

However, in a response, NPQS said that the samples of fertilizer brought down from China were tested on a number of occasions and the tests were not conducted for only three days.

Commenting on the response of the Chinese Embassy,  Alahapperuma said that Chinese firm has a right to appeal against the decision reached by the local authorities. Further, he dismissed the claims that a fertilizer import issue has strained bilateral relationship between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the government is planning to import required organic fertilizer from India after the laboratory tests conducted on the organic fertilizer samples sent from India have confirmed to be suitable for the use in Sri Lanka.

Minister Aluthgamage said discussions are underway to import the organic fertilizer from India, and if there were delays, he noted that the government would take measures to airlift the required organic fertilizer to supply the farmers with necessary  fertilizer stocks on time.