
GAO Center Request More Fertilizer For Paddy Harvest
Editor
May 23, 2023

The Green Agriculture Operations Centre of the Sri Lanka Army requests implementing the sustainable fertilizer recommendations to increase paddy harvest in Sri Lanka.
The paddy harvest per hectare in Sri Lanka in the 2021 Maha season has gone down to 02 metric tons per hectare. But in the 2022 maha season the yield per hectare has gone up to 3.2 metric tons, according to the Sri Lanka Army Green Agriculture Operation Center mentioned.
The Minister of Agriculture Mahinda Amaraweera said that the aim is to increase the yield per hectare to 05 metric tons in the maha season of 2023 and requested the support of the Green Agriculture Operation Center of the SL Army to overcome that target.
A group of officers from the Green Agriculture Operation Centre of the Sri Lanka Army yesterday (22) discussed with the Minister of Agriculture Mahinda Amaraweera regarding the contribution of the Army to the progress of the agriculture sector.
Gunadasa Samarasinghe, Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Brigadier Chandana P. Arangalle, officer of the Sri Lanka Army and a group of officials from the Department of Agriculture were present.
The Green Agriculture Operation Center stated that 100 percent application of chemical fertilizers or organic fertilizers to get high yield from paddy fields does not give proper results, and high yield can be obtained by applying both organic fertilizers and chemical fertilizers in proper proportion.
Therefore, the recommendation for the application of 30 percent organic fertilizers and 70 percent chemical fertilizers, which is currently recommended by the Department of Agriculture, is very suitable for paddy cultivation.
Mahinda Amaraweera, the Minister of Agriculture who expressed his opinion, said that before 2021, the paddy yield per hectare in Sri Lanka was up to 4.5 metric tons, but in 2021, due to the policy of applying only organic fertilizers, the paddy yield decreased to 02 metric tons per hectare.
During the Maha season of 2022, it can be increased to 3.2, although it was mentioned that a record high harvest has been achieved in some districts of the island. Those farmers have used organic fertilizers, chemical fertilizers, and other nutritional inputs.
Therefore, the Minister of Agriculture advised the officials to immediately give proper knowledge to the farmers regarding the fertilizer recommendation of the Department of Agriculture to get a high yield in paddy cultivation.
The Green Agriculture Operations Centre agreed to provide support to boost the agriculture sector of Sri Lanka.