Diesel for crop damaged farmers

The Agriculture Ministry yesterday (7) decided to provide Rs.17,000 worth of diesel to farmers of 65,000 acres whose crops were damaged due to drought in the last Yala Season. This is provided in addition to the subsidy amount of Rs.15,000 provided by the Government for the purchase of fertilizers and the compensation amount of Rs.100,000 per hectare.

A discussion was held on Thursday (6) under the patronage of Agriculture and Plantation Industry Minister Mahinda Amaraweera about the relief to be given to the farmers who suffered crop damage. Officials from the Agriculture Ministry, the Agricultural Development Department and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation also participated.

In the last season, the Chinese Government provided 6.5 million litres of diesel for free distribution to farmers. Two million litres of diesel was left as a large number of small paddy farmers did not come to get their quota of fuel.

Therefore, the Minister decided to give this stock of fuel to farmers who were unable to carry out cultivation activities in the Maha Season.

Accordingly, Minister Amaraweera yesterday instructed all relevant officials to take steps to immediately distribute this amount of fuel to all farmers who suffered crop damage at the rate of 40 litres per farmer.

Accordingly, in the next two days, this stock of diesel will be distributed to all the farmers whose crops were damaged.

He also decided to give priority to farmers of the Udawalawa reservoir, whose crops were deserted due to drying up. Many paddy fields were destroyed because the water from Samanalawewa was not supplied to the Udawala reservoir at the right time. Therefore, the damage caused to farmers in the Walawa zone should be considered as a man-made disaster and priority should be given to them, the Minister said.

Today, the farmers who suffered crop losses in the Walawa zone do not have enough food for themselves. These farmers are the ones who produced seed paddy for the country. Therefore, the Minister also mentioned that it is the Government’s responsibility to take care of all those farmers.

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