President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has taken steps to ban the use and import of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides in the country. He says he will take up the challenge of making Sri Lanka the first country in the world to eliminate the use of chemical fertilizers without reversing its steps.
Sri Lanka spent $ 221 million in 2019 on chemical fertilizer imports. With the increase in oil prices, that cost will increase by between $ 300-400 million. The President is of the view that despite the huge expenditure on chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, there has been no qualitative increase in agricultural production.
However, the Low Country Plantation Workers’ Union points out that if the use of chemical fertilizers is banned soon, the country’s tea industry will be in crisis.
They point out that planters have been accustomed to applying chemical fertilizers since the tea plant stage. Ruwan Gallage, President of the Low Country Estate Workers’ Union, emphasized that chemical fertilizers were needed to obtain a quality tea stalk and that if the use of chemical fertilizers was banned immediately, the national income earned by the plantation industry would be completely destroyed.
He points out that this will cause inconvenience to planters as well as all those involved in tea cultivation and says that these decisions should not be taken immediately.