Vegetable production declined by more than 50% due to fertilizer policy: HARTI study

By Kalani Kumarasinghe  

Up-country and low-country vegetable production declined by more than 50 per cent in 2021 and 2022 due to the government decision to ban the import of chemical fertilizer, a study revealed.  

A research conducted by the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute (HARTI) found that vegetable farmers suffered more than 57 per cent average yield loss per acre during the Maha cultivation season, in comparison to previous years, with the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government’s overnight shift to an organic agriculture policy in 2021. Farmers have suffered significant losses despite attempts to practice hybrid methodologies of using chemical agriculture in combination with organic agriculture, the study found.  

The study aimed to analyze the chemical import ban’s short-term impacts on vegetable production in Sri Lanka. Although the government later revoked the ban, a substantial yield gap had been reported for all vegetables, resulting in a strong contraction of agricultural output. The survey of vegetable farmers was carried out from August to September 2022, which found that more than 80 per cent of farmers have applied at least one type of chemical fertilizer even in lesser quantities than recommended. At least 19 per cent households were moderately food insecure with 1 per cent severely food insecure, the survey found.  
64 per cent of the farmers were reported to have applied organic fertilizer to their crops even prior to the government’s shift in policy. The difficulty to source large quantities of organic fertilizer and high labour requirement were found to be economically unsustainable.