The Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industries, Mr. Mahinda Amaraweera advised to expand the existing tea fertilizer subsidy to tea plantations of up to 50 acres.
Currently, this tea fertilizer subsidy is given only for tea estates up to 10 acres. Fertilizer application is mandatory to increase the yield of tea. But at present tea growers are not taking steps to apply fertilizers to tea, so the yield of tea leaves is decreasing dramatically. Because of this, the Ministry of Agriculture and Plantation Industries decided to reduce the prices of three types of fertilizers used for tea by 50 percent from the prices available in the market.
Under the fertilizer subsidy for tea, a 50 kg fertilizer bundle of U-709 and U-834 costs Rs. 7735, a bundle of T 56 tea fertilizer at Rs. 8325 and a bundle of T 750 and T 250 fertilizer at arrangements have been made to provide it at a concessional price of Rs.5550.
The government-owned Ceylon Fertilizer Corporation and commercial fertilizer companies produce 05 types of fertilizer for tea cultivation. Also, the prices are reduced by 50 percent from the market price and the fertilizer is given to the tea growers at a subsidized price and the tea board provides the financial facilities for the tea fertilizer subsidy.
Arrangements have been made to increase the supply of tea fertilizer to 20,000 metric tons by the month of June and the Small Tea Estate Development Authority and Ceylon Tea Board agreed to provide this tea fertilizer subsidy to every 50 acre tea estate.
A discussion on measures to be taken to boost tea cultivation in Sri Lanka was held today (09) in the morning at the Ministry of Agriculture and officials representing the Tea Growers Association, Tea Manufacturers Association, Small Tea Estate Development Authority and Ceylon Tea Board participated in it.
The Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Plantation Industry Mr. Janaka Dharmakirthi and other officials participated in this discussion.
