The Department of Agriculture says Sri Lanka will not be required to import rice and five other commodities this year since a substantial harvest has been received.

According to a communiqué from the Department, Sri Lanka has reached self-sufficiency in rice, black gram, green gram, kurakkan (finger millet), cowpea and groundnuts.

The Agriculture Department said following re-introduction of chemical fertilizer in the 2022 Yala season, the yield has improved considerably.Accordingly, with the harvest in the last Maha season, Sri Lanka has produced 2.7 million MT of rice.

The Department said the country’s annual requirement of rice is 2.4 million MT and therefore there will be a surplus of 300,000MT.

Furthermore, Sri Lanka produced 17,866MT of black gram while the annual requirement is around 20,000MT.The Agriculture Department said already around 13,500MT of green gram had been produced this year and the annual requirement is around 20,000MT.It added out of the 15,000MT of cowpea needed this year, around 13,740MT have already been produced.

Based on the assessment of the Agriculture Department, Sri Lanka needs around 35,000MT of ground nuts annually and this year’s harvest is around 36,500MT.The Department said around 6,500MT of kurakkan has already been produced this year and farmers are on course to meet the annual demand of 10,000MT.

Accordingly, the Department says there is no necessity to import these commodities this year.