Increasing paddy productivity for a richer harvest

RICE contributes to around 1.8% of Sri Lanka’s GDP. The reduction in total paddy productivity, leading to reduced total paddy production, has affected the local economy. The country has no other option but to import rice to feed the nation, thereby taking a toll on the national economy.

- BY RANDIMA ATTYGALLE

In 2022, at a time of forex drain, we imported 783,000 metric tons of rice, spending $ 292.5 million. In the following year, due to extreme rainfall, the loss of rice availability led the country to import 167,000 metric tons of rice during the period —4 December 2023 to 10 January 2024. This was mainly done by the private sector, where the government imports amounted to around 4,800 metric tons. The value of total import of rice in 2023 was $ 16.8 million.

In 2024 we produced around 4.7 million metric tons of paddy, generating 3.2 million metric tons of rice (assuming 68% milling outturn as estimated by the Department of Agriculture — DOA). “However, most of the rice millers make this conversion as 62.5% which would indicate the availability of 2.93 million metric tons of rice (without considering the use of rice to other industries, such as animal feed production). The DOA, using data from the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS), considers annual per capita rice consumption as 112.3 kilograms. These values indicate the availability of rice at levels more than the requirement of little over 2.5 million metric tons for human consumption,” says Prof. Marambe.

Rice imported or locally produced is prohibited to be used for any other purpose than for human consumption as per the gazette notifications No. 2285/18 issued on 24 June 2022. However, as Prof. Marambe points out, about 300,000 metric tons of rice (around 440,000 metric tons of paddy) was consumed in 2024 for animal feed production due to shortage of maize produced in the country. “Although use of rice as animal feed especially for the poultry industry will in turn assist in providing the much-needed protein nutrition to Sri Lankans, this has added a massive pressure to paddy production making rice availability less than the requirement.”

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