Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-09-12

Crash Programme for the supply of seed paddy for the 'Maha' Season 2017/18

- Normally paddy is cultivated in 8 lakh hectares of paddy land during the Maha season for which 4 million bushes of seed paddy are being used. Due to the unfavourable weather conditions which prevailed in certain parts of the Island, it is expected that there will be a shortage in the supply of seed paddy during the Maha season of 2017/2018. Therefore, a proposal has been made to jointly implement a crash programme for the supply of germination certified seed paddy by the Department of Agriculture in collaboration with the Provincial Departments of Agriculture, Mahaweli Authority and other relevant Institutions.

Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Duminda Dissanayake, the Minister of Agriculture, to purchase 560,000 bushels of high quality seed paddy expeditiously, from the areas where seed paddy cultivation was carried out successfully and from the paddy cultivations done for the purpose of consumption during the Yala season of 2017 and to sell such seed paddy among the farmers in areas where there is a shortage of seed paddy, was approved by the Cabinet. Further, the Cabinet also granted approval to sell the seed paddy to the farmers in the Districts which were subject to severe drought during the past season and suffered loss of harvest, charging only 50% of the value.