The Sri Lanka Agripreneurs’ Forum noted that a suitable mix of chemical and organic fertiliser would give an enhanced yield of over 20 percent compared to the yield from the use of only chemical fertiliser, citing reports from the Department of Agriculture (DOA) on research conducted over many years.
The Forum representing growers, farmer organisations, agri-value-addition enterprises, agri-professionals and academics, agri- scientists, local and global marketers of agri- produce, providers of agri-inputs, and local agri- investors presented a slew of measures to address the impending food crisis.
It stated that the research is based on soil types and is crop-based. Hence the DOA should develop a set of recommendations and make them immediately available to the agriculture sector, the Forum stated.
Thus the limited quantities of chemical fertiliser that are available should be issued only to those who practise this method.
Since the original ban on chemical fertiliser came into effect, many farmers and entrepreneurs opted to manufacture and use non-chemical natural fertiliser, the forum stated.
Many successes have been reported in the media. Urgent action is needed by the Department of Agriculture to verify these claims and support and expand these practices widely as the official recommendation if proved accurate and valid. Considering the urgency of the situation, these must be done immediately if not already done.
The introduction and proliferation of the use of chemical fertiliser and pesticides is a historically recent event. While these may have made a positive impact, the recent market upheavals and the long-term negative impact of near-total dependence on external sources impacting national food security must be recognised. Therefore, it is wise to embrace this opportunity to implement alternatives that everyone agrees are a better approach if implemented intelligently.
The present shortages of fertiliser and foreign exchange have pushed Sri Lanka to come up with a much faster change to the alternatives, even accepting the much-talked-about drop in yield. Other means of covering the drop need to be adopted such as cultivating abandoned and underutilised and unused arable lands and reducing post-harvest losses.