By Skandha Gunasekara While the fertiliser shortage is being attended to, currently, any further shortages are due to excess usage by farmers, The Morning learnt. National Fertiliser Secretariat Director Mahesh Gammanpila, while acknowledging that a shortage had occurred initially as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, stated that farmers were currently abusing the use of fertiliser. “The farmers are misusing and overusing fertilisers. Some use the wrong fertiliser for the wrong crop while many more are using excessive amounts of fertiliser in general. They do these in the hopes of larger harvests, ignoring the recommended dosages,” he said. Gammanpila added that more than 30,000 MT of fertiliser had been distributed in the last two weeks. “We have distributed over 30,000 MT of fertiliser in the past two weeks and we expect to distribute another 50,000 MT in June,” he said, pointing out that this was twice the quantity of fertiliser distributed in June last year. He noted that excessive use of chemical fertiliser was also harming fertiliser soil. “The carbon levels in our soil have reduced dangerously and are a direct result of fertiliser overuse. We must change this and transition to organic fertiliser,” Gammanpila said.