Sri Lanka bars Chinese ship carrying contaminated fertiliser

Sri Lanka has banned a Chinese ship carrying organic fertilizer that experts found contaminated with harmful bacteria, authorities said on Sunday.
The action comes as Sri Lanka struggles with food shortages caused by a currency crisis, while farmers have said a government ban on chemical fertilizers could ruin their crops this year.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office said the National Plant Quarantine Services had analyzed a sample from the unidentified Chinese vessel and “confirmed the presence of organisms, including certain types of harmful bacteria.”
A High Commercial Court has prohibited any payment to Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group Co., Ltd for the 96,000 tonnes of fertilizer, an official statement added.
Authorities halted the $ 42 million deal last month, but reports said the cargo had still been shipped and was due to reach Colombo. The location of the ship has not been revealed.
The Sri Lanka Port Authority said the Ministry of Agriculture ordered them on Saturday to avoid unloading the fertilizer at any port and to reject the Chinese ship.
Sri Lanka originally ordered organic fertilizer from China as part of its efforts to become the world’s first 100% organic agricultural nation.
China’s organic plant nutrients were meant to replace chemicals removed during the main rice-growing season that began on October 15.
Following widespread protests by farmers that the abandonment of agrochemicals would critically affect yields, the government last week lifted the ban on chemical fertilizers imposed in May.
Since then, it has imported 30,000 tons of potassium chloride as fertilizer and some 3 million liters of nitrogen-based plant nutrients from India.
Farmers of tea, the main export product alongside rice, have warned that crop yields could be cut in half without chemicals.

AGENCIES