Agriculture Minister calls for report on big onion cultivation

Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera has instructed the Agriculture Department to provide an immediate report regarding big onion cultivation in Sri Lanka. 
Amaraweera noted that big onion cultivation in Sri Lanka was successfully done many years ago but for about seven to eight years, onion cultivation has been very unsuccessful. 
Last week, Amaraweera instructed the Agriculture Department to submit an immediate report regarding cultivation of big onions in the country, as it is reported that the farmers have abandoned big onion cultivation. 

The annual requirement of onion in the country is 300,000 MT but the national production this year is 4,716 MT. The amount imported during this year thus far is 131,795 MT. 
The world’s biggest onion exporter India last week slapped a 40 percent export duty on onion exports, up to December 31, in an attempt to improve the domestic availability of the vegetable.
With this move, importers of onion like Sri Lanka in the Asian region will have to shell out more, as the other regional exporters have limited supplies.