• Bell pepper, beetroot, broccoli, knol-khol and other seeds to be imported

 The Department of Agriculture is to expand the local production of vegetable seeds, with the stated aim of stopping imports, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday (23).

Speaking to The Daily Morning, the Agriculture Ministry's Media Director Dharma Wanninayake said that the total requirement of vegetable seeds in Sri Lanka is about 800,000 kilograms (kg), of which 100,000 kg are needed to produce ‘up-country’ vegetables, and 700,000 kg for ‘low-country’ vegetables. At present the requirement of seeds is met by both local seed production and imported seeds.

"Most of the vegetable seeds required by the country are imported, and farmers have to pay high prices for them. Considering this issue, Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera instructed the Agriculture Department to prepare a programme to increase the local production of vegetable seeds," he said.

Accordingly, he said that the Department has initiated a programme to produce vegetable seeds with the aim to stop the import of such by 100% by 2030. In particular, he said that the production of hybrid vegetable seeds at seed farms of the Department is now being carried out.

Under the programme, Wanninayake said, the Department has commenced the production of 100% of snake gourd seeds, 93% of long bean seeds, 89% of bitter gourd seeds, 79% of brinjal seeds, 64% of beans seeds, 61% of ladies fingers seeds, 44% of capsicum seeds, 27% of tomato seeds, and 39% of radish seeds.

However, since a few types of vegetable seeds such as those for Chinese cabbage, bell pepper, beetroot, broccoli, knol-khol and leeks cannot be locally produced under general weather conditions, he said that such seeds would have to be imported further.