The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe - Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Co-operative Development
The Minister said potato farmers in Nuwara Eliya and Badulla-Bandarawela are facing downward price pressure during the harvesting season, while Lanka Sathosa is already buying local potatoes at about Rs. 235 and the Rs. 80 duty on imported potatoes remains in place. He stated that the Ministry would meet with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Co-operative Wholesale Establishment, and Lanka Sathosa to establish a purchasing mechanism, including a fixed farmer price, and would also engage private retail networks. He added that the Government plans to purchase more than 100 metric tons of local potatoes per day to support farmers.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Thank you for the question. We discussed this this morning with several MPs representing Nuwara Eliya. The President also proposed measures in the last Budget. Potato harvesting begins after March and continues around nine months, peaking in September-October, with current supplies from Nuwara Eliya and Badulla-Bandarawela. We recognize downward price pressure. Lanka Sathosa is purchasing local potatoes at about Rs. 235. Imported potatoes carry an Rs. 80 duty, which remains.
¶ 02 Today we will convene with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Co-operative Wholesale Establishment and Lanka Sathosa to set a purchasing mechanism, including a fixed price for farmers. We are engaging private retail networks as well, to agree on local purchasing at an agreed price. We plan to purchase over 100 metric tons per day to support farmers.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Wednesday, 6 May 2026 ·No. 23541 ·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/5470
Cite as: The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe - Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Co-operative Development. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 6 May 2026. No. 23541. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/5470