Fertiliser production and distribution to get tech facelift

• Cabinet gives approval for new mechanism to produce and distribute fertiliser 
• ICTA and Nanotechnology Institute to partner initiative 
• Includes upgrading National Fertiliser Secretariat, improving labs and field inspection mechanism 
• Use of fertiliser to be moderated to maintain better soil conditions, reduce wastage  

Fertiliser production and supply is to get a major tech facelift after Cabinet approved a proposal to formulate a new centralised methodology with support from key IT and nanotechnology bodies of the Government.

The Cabinet proposal presented by Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage and approved by the Ministers aims to ensure that production, supply and use of fertiliser is done on a scientific basis in order to maintain sustainable soil conditions to produce quality crops. 

The Cabinet paper said a proper fertiliser supply chain management process with appropriate technical procedures that do not lead to fertiliser wastage, scarcity and deviation from standards should be followed. 

Accordingly the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal presented by Aluthgamage to take the initiative to provide infrastructure to set up a centralised methodology with support from the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA). 

The methodology will include completion of a National Fertiliser Secretariat with modern technology, improving existing laboratories and strengthening the district level operating and evaluation system including a field inspection mechanism to be established in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology. 

The Government annually spends about Rs. 35 billion on the fertiliser subsidy. However, an audit report released in February 2020 found that much of the fertiliser was overused, leading to serious wastage and health problems. 

The Auditor General (AG) recommended that immediate steps be taken to implement the decision taken by the Fertiliser Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture in July 2019 to encourage farmers to use Single Super Phosphate (SSP) manufactured using Eppawala rock phosphate which can be substituted for Triple Super Phosphate (TSP) as this decision had not been complied with even by November 2019.  

“It has been identified that the use of these imported fertilisers had resulted in the outbreak of several diseases, whereas action had not been taken to manufacture fertiliser using phosphate with the least amount of cadmium and arsenic and to limit fertiliser importation,” the AG’s report said.

The AG’s report said that the Government spent $ 1,276,500 (around Rs. 2.3 billion) in 2018 to import 3,508.5 metric tons of Single Super Phosphate (SSP) despite the possibility of manufacturing the SSP using Eppawala rock phosphate.

This is while the State-owned company Lanka Phosphate Ltd. (LPL), the main objective of which is to manufacture and export fertiliser, nearly 27 years since its inception, failed to manufacture phosphate-based fertiliser for short-term crops or diversify to other products other than selling phosphate to several companies as a raw material and manufacturing fertiliser for coconut. 

According to the Cabinet Memorandum submitted in March 2018 by the then Minister of Agriculture, the national requirement of TSP, the main fertiliser containing phosphate, has been 96,000 metric tons for 2018 while the expenditure incurred for the import of TSP has increased gradually going from 0.025% in 2014 to 0.129% in 2018.