The Hon. Aravinda Senarath
Answering on behalf of the Agriculture Minister, Aravinda Senarath confirmed that the Tambuttegama Agrarian Service Centre holds 41,828.95 kg of MOP fertilizer and 0.307 metric tons of urea, with the MOP stored since June 2023 and the urea since the 2022/2023 Maha season. He said the stock came under an Asian Development Bank-supported concessional fertilizer programme and remained largely unsold because it arrived after Yala 2023 cultivation needs were met and the centre could not frequently adjust prices to compete with private suppliers. He outlined past sales at revised prices and said farmers were informed through field officers, committees, farmer organizations and seasonal meetings, with credit purchases enabled through the Agrarian Bank, but no definite date could be given for clearing the remaining stock.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, Hon. Susantha Kumara Nawarathna has raised a timely and very important question regarding fertilizer at a service centre. On behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, I will answer.
¶ 02 (a) (i) Yes.
¶ 03 (ii) MOP – 41,828.95 kg; Urea – 0.307 metric tons.
¶ 04 (iii) MOP has been stored since June 2023; Urea has been stored since the 2022/2023 Maha season.
¶ 05 (iv) This is not a stock purchased for retail sale by Agrarian Service Centres. It is fertilizer distributed on a concessionary basis to farmers under the Asian Development Bank-supported fertilizer programme through Government fertilizer companies and delivered to Agrarian Service Centres on a cash-on-delivery (COD) basis. The stock arrived at the centre on 21, 25, 27 and 29 June 2023, by which time cultivation for the 2023 Yala season had ended and the farmers’ MOP requirement had been fully met. Thereafter, instructions were issued to sell the remaining fertilizer for cash at adjusted prices.
¶ 06 Accordingly, following instructions to adjust prices from time to time to match private competitors, sales under different price levels took place as follows:
¶ 07 - Opening stock at start of Yala 2023 in store: 5,260.95 kg - Receipts during Yala 2023: 50,000.00 kg - Total available: 55,260.95 kg
¶ 08 Sales details: - Distributed for Yala 2023 voucher books: 5,582.00 kg - Maha 2023/2024: 50 kg bags at Rs. 14,000 each – 210.00 kg - Maha 2023/2024: 50 kg bags at Rs. 9,000 each – 2,705 kg - Yala 2024: 50 kg bags at Rs. 9,000 each – 2,080 kg - Yala 2025: 50 kg bags at Rs. 8,500 each – 30 kg - Maha 2025/2026: 50 kg bags at Rs. 7,700 each – 2,825 kg
¶ 09 Current balance: 41,828.95 kg of MOP and 0.307 metric tons of Urea (the Urea is a remainder from Colombo Commercial Fertilizers received under the 2022/2023 Maha concessional fertilizer programme for paddy).
¶ 10 Because the Tambuttegama Agrarian Service Centre is very close to the town and cannot vary prices frequently to compete with private fertilizer suppliers, a large balance remains since 2023.
¶ 11 (v) Yes.
¶ 12 (vi) Through Agricultural Research and Production Assistants, the Agrarian Service Committee, and farmer organizations; awareness at seasonal meetings; enabling fertilizer purchase on credit via the Agrarian Bank.
¶ 13 (vii) As fertilizer is sold based on farmer demand, a definite date for finishing the stock cannot be specified.
¶ 14 (b) Not applicable.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 7 April 2026 ·No. 23476 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/480
Cite as: The Hon. Aravinda Senarath. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 7 April 2026. No. 23476. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/480