Media Brief – Role of Agric Inputs in Food Security

Executive committee and membership of Croplife Sri Lanka, in partnership with industry
professionals and subject experts at local and global arena organized an interactive gathering
themed with “Role of Agric Inputs in Food Security”. The event was held at Waters edge on Friday
the 28th of October addressing the key issues faced by the country over more than a year of
controversial policy decisions impacting all sectors of agriculture in Sri Lanka.
CropLife Sri Lanka is a member of CropLife Asia, one of the six regional associations of CropLife
International, a network of regional and national associations in 91 countries. The CropLife Sri
Lanka is comprised with Agriculture Input providers in Sri Lanka. The key goal of the CropLife
Sri Lanka is to improve the botany of crops to feed the growing population in the country and to
introduce innovative advance solutions for crop protection.
The main objective of the gathering is to build up a new conversation with professionals in the
field in order to find the solutions to the issues raised in the country due to the policy decision
taken by Sri Lankan government on 27.04.2022 causing a tremendous impact to the agricultural
sector in Sri Lanka
In the backdrop of numerous Economic and policy mishaps evident during 2021-2022 period,
decisions made towards agriculture especially the banning of essential fertilizers, pesticides and
other vital Agricultural inputs resulted in a major collapse in overall agriculture productivity,
resulting in shockwaves of food shortages, exorbitant price hikes leading towards partial starvation
among various socioeconomic strata represented in country’s population.

Ranging from Sri Lanka’s sole-staple of rice, all crop sectors including Maize, Tea, Upcountry and
Low country vegetables suffered substantial negative impacts in the aftermath of short-supplied
Agricultural inputs. A recent study revealed the magnitude of impact where increase of COP has
exceeded 67% while reduction of average yield has been recorded at 54%.
Subsequently, the selling price of agricultural produce have increased exponentially causing
various consumer segments to reduce or totally give up the purchase decisions. In overall, there
has been more than 45% increase of the selling price at every level of agricultural value chains.
Achievement of self-sufficiency in rice ever since 1990’s has been an all-time remarkable
milestone, reflecting the expertise, dedication and capability of cross-sectoral stakeholders to drive
country’s agriculture in the correct path. This progress has been severely affected over the year
passed, resulting in 51% yield loss, 67% increase in spending for crop production while selling
price resulted in 46% hike.
Maize being another remarkable crop recorded improved productivity and export potentials several
years back, has been another hard hit witnessing 59% yield loss, 66% increase in cost of production
while selling price has risen by a shocking 47%.
Vegetables both upcountry and low country have been no exceptions in terms of the saddening
impacts of wrong policy decisions. Absence of pesticides and fertilizers have resulted in yield
losses among upcountry and low country vegetables at the levels of 61% and 51% consecutively.
Selling price of both vegetable types touched an increase of 50%. Production expenses of low
country vegetables increased by 65% while the upcountry vegetables recorded a staggering 70%
increase of production cost.
Moreover, to the immediate aftermath, there are deep driven impacts caused by the absence of
proper Agricultural inputs which, which are hard to be dealt with in another season or years’ time.
CropLife has recognized following areas that will pause chronic and long-term threats for the food
production if not dealt with cautiously and collaboratively by all stakeholders:
(1) Loss of farm output prompting elevated farmgate prices causing prohibitive prices tags
right from the beginning of crop value chains.
(2) Avenues being created for the entry of illegal, substandard, and dangerous pesticide
substances to reach to local agrochemical market. Numerous occurrences of smuggles pesticides
from India and other origins were reported, but CropLife learns that considerable volume of such
chemicals is still being traded, causing detrimental health and safety concerns among the farmers,
consumers and environment at large.
3) Unaffordable input costs have largely resulted in farmers giving up cultivations, paving
way for a multitude of economic and social issues. Occurrences of farmers uprising were widely
evident during past couple of months, expressing their anger and frustration created amidst the
uncertainties in agriculture.
All the parties responsible for food security in country should act collaboratively in order to
mitigate the negative effects occurred due to the Government policy decision.
In the interactive gathering, following areas were profoundly discussed.
• All the inputs required for a quality harvest should be considered as a package and a
national policy should be implemented to source and provide the same including seeds,
fertilizer, pesticides, and fuel required to ensure the national food security.
• An accurate mechanism to assess the annual requirement of agricultural inputs should be
implemented and importing the necessary quantities of Agric inputs, should be facilitated..
• According to the analysis done on past data related to imports, a requirement of 500 USD
is there to import agricultural inputs, which is considerably lower than the annual expenses
to import the same food items.
• A mechanism should be established to support the farmer/ industrial entities to purchase
Agricultural inputs under a suitable insurance system.
• All the responsible government institutes should be participated in policy decision making
and the decisions made should not be politically driven. There should be a Proper
coordination with the industrial entities before policy decision making.
• Illegal/ Fake agricultural products business should be totally restricted, and all the
responsible institutes should work collaboratively to achieve this objective.
• Necessary techniques to improve the efficiency of Agricultural inputs should be identified
and awareness among the public should be raised against the overuse and misuse of the
agricultural inputs.
Once renowned as the granary of Asia while being recognized for superior agricultural
produce gifted with unique attributes, Sri Lanka has always been progressing in a successful
endeavor in agriculture. Scientists, breeders, agri input suppliers and various other expert segments
have joined hand in hand throughout this hopeful journey to nourish the nation across time and
beyond. Past year had been a nightmare, as the country’s trajectory shifted miles away from logical
and justifiable approach, forgetting science and technology at a brutal extent. Reversal of the
events and bringing back the hope towards farmers, value chain operators and consumers will be
a gigantic challenge ahead of all the sectoral stakeholders. CropLife Sri Lanka is progressing on
its mission playing a frontier role assuring safety of farmers, consumers and the environment,
whilst exerting every effort to reinstate the dynamic progress of national agriculture, driven with
true spirits of logic and science, stripping away the dark robes of myth and delusion.