Why agricultural value chains fail: Failure to commit to policy decisions?
IntroductionFriday, 2 March 2018
It is with great difficulty that we as a country arrived at the decision to abolish the fertiliser subsidy.
The fertiliser subsidy, as an economic instrument used to increase the efficiency of rice production, was successful in achieving its primary objective, which is increasing rice production and reducing the need to import rice.
Sri Lanka became very close to achieving its status of rice self-sufficiency. However, there were many negative externalities. With a subsidy of almost 90%, farmers became heavily dependent on chemical fertiliser, nearly forgot about organic fertiliser and overused as well as misused the subsidy.
