Increasing paddy productivity for a richer harvest

University of Peradeniya Senior Professor Buddhi Marambe

Paddy is a significant contributor to the national economy as the main staple for Sri Lankans (paddy-rice). The daily consumption of rice in Sri Lanka is 6,500 metric tons equivalent to about 9,500 metric tons of paddy. Climate change, poor policy decision, fertiliser-related issues, weak market mechanisms and demand from other industries, have affected our paddy-rice production. Country’s paddy production has bounced back effectively from climate-affected situations, but has continued to struggle to regain its status due to poor policy-making, points out Senior Professor in Crop Science from University of Peradeniya’s Faculty of Agriculture, Buddhi Marambe, who tables several recommendations to increase paddy productivity and thereby enable a richer harvest.

By Randima Attygalle

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. 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.”

Climate change

Climate change has negatively impacted both paddy and maize production over the years. The prolonged drought experienced in 2016 and 2017, reduced the total paddy production by 35.4%, compelling to import 747,000 metric tons of rice during the last 3-4 months of 2017. However, the country bounced back by producing more than 5 million metric tons of paddy annually, in both 2020 and 2021. The efforts to recover the situation since 2022 has been badly affected by climate change. “In 2023, we experienced extreme levels of rainfall during October-December, which reduced paddy production by about 12.5% in the Maha season of 2023/2024 compared to a normal season, while the Maha season of 2024/2025 was the worst affected since 2019 (excluding 2022), recording the lowest paddy production in a Maha season (around 2.62 million metric tons).”

Fertiliser recommendations

The policy interventions made in mid-2021 by banning the import and use of synthetic fertiliser and pesticides, led to devastating impacts in 2022 where paddy production was reduced by 35.4% compared to the previous year. “Recent data from the National Fertilizer Secretariat (NFS) indicate that in the past five cultivation seasons (after the ill-fated policy decision to ban chemical fertiliser), urea fertiliser has been distributed among paddy farmers at a level less than 70% of the crop requirement. This is a critical issue as nitrogen is an essential element for crop growth and development,” explains the crop scientist.

The fertiliser recommendation of DOA made in 2013 clearly indicates the nitrogen requirement for paddy supplied through urea. It is 225 kilograms and 175 kilograms per hectare for irrigated and rainfed paddy, respectively, in the Dry and Intermediate zones. For the same conditions in the Wet zone, it is 140 kilograms and 100 kilograms. The urea fertiliser is applied in at least three splits depending on the crop growth duration to maximise its use-efficiency. “It is obvious, that if the required quantities of nutrients are not made available the crop will never provide the anticipated yield,” says Prof. Marambe who goes onto note that the unavailability of Triple Super Phosphate and Muriate of Potash at the correct time was a double whammy. These, coupled with poor crop protection practices, especially weed control, could be the reasons for the failure to recover from the poor policy decisions made in 2021, says the scientist. 

Paddy purchase contest

Early this year, the Government imposed a maximum retail price for rice and announced that dried paddy is to be purchased by the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) at Rs. 120 per kilo of nadu-type. This price basically depends on the average cost of production of paddy calculated by the DOA, and cost of post-harvest operations up to the retailer selling paddy to the consumer. Recently, the Government announced a purchasing price of wet paddy at Rs. 102 per kilo of nadu-type as well. “The farming community from several regions of the country claim that the price is not adequate, however, the Government has embedded nearly 27% of profit based on the average cost of production estimated as Rs. 94 per kilo of paddy in reaching this purchase price by the PMB. This paddy purchase-price effective from the end of Maha season 2024/2025, did not yield the expected results as the PMB finally ended up receiving less than 60 metric tons of paddy,” remarks Prof. Marambe who says that this clearly indicates that the private sector collectors/millers have had accessed a large proportion of the paddy produced in the said season, thus, affecting the intentions of the government to stabilise the market price of rice, when required. 

The purchase of wet paddy (approx. 18-21% of moisture) has been a main practice of the private sector, where PMB does not have the required driers (in addition to transport facilities) and thus, depends on other players in the system to help drying paddy to a moisture content of 14% or less, for storage. As paddy purchase prices by the PMB are not issued through a gazette, this process has still supported the private entities to purchase paddy (dry or wet) at different prices at the farm-gate. “Though the PMB has sought the support of private buyers to purchase at the farm-gate, the year-long connectivity between paddy farmers and the large-scale paddy purchasers/millers has made the private sector the winner in this competition of paddy purchase. This has left only a small space for the PMB to intervene to stabilise rice-price in the market,” says the scholar.

The only branded-rice in Sri Lanka – Keeri Samba, has made headlines due to the scarcities and market prices beyond the MRP (Rs. 260 per kilo). Over the past decade, nadu-type rice varieties have occupied about 77-80% of the cultivated extent while Keeri samba has reached the highest in 2019 (11% of the extent). In Maha season 2024/2025, Keeri samba occupied about 7.4% of the gross paddy sown extent of 825,869 ha. Red rice variety known as ‘At362’ has dominated the cultivated extent in the recent years with around 14-16% share. “The cultivation of different varieties of paddy depends on the consumer demand, purchase price, and availability of seed paddy, thus creating uncertainty of availability of rice of a given category. For example, if the cultivated extent in Maha season of a given variety is to increase, then seed paddy for the said variety should be produced in the previous Yala season. The DOA does not prescribe the cultivation extents of rice varieties in different seasons which may be a solution in the long run depending on the consumer demand,” Prof Marambe observes.

Improving land productivity 

Due to limitation of land and increasing population, improving land productivity is the only way out for local crop cultivation, and paddy is not an exception, points out Prof. Marambe. “Sri Lanka is still to break the barrier of 5 metric tons per hectare though the country was heading towards it until 2021. The devastating effect of poor policy decisions and fertiliser-related issues have prevented the country in achieving this goal despite many other efforts,” says the senior professor who moots several recommendations if we are to improve our paddy productivity here at home in the next three to five years. These are also some of the best practices which are adopted in several more paddy-producing nations. “We are a small market with total paddy lands accounting to about 840,000-850,000 hectares. When cultivated in two seasons, the total cultivated extent accounts for a maximum of 1.3 million hectares. Hence, increasing paddy production almost totally relies on increasing paddy productivity, as area expansion seems not possible.”

Certified seed paddy and fertiliser

Use of certified seed paddy is among the top recommendations which will no doubt increase the land productivity. Currently the state and private sector provide around 16% of the certified seed paddy requirement of the country as the remaining amounts are self-produced by farmers. “Seed paddy is not imported to the country and about 99% of the locally paddy extent is cultivated through high yielding rice varieties produced by our own scientists/researchers. Efforts should thus be made to increase the supply of certified seed paddy production to 20% of the requirement by 2027, reaching 25% in 2029 to support efforts to improve productivity of paddy here at home,” suggests Prof. Marambe.

The crop scientist also calls for a strong policy decision to make farmers apply the required quantities of fertiliser as per the recommendation of the DOA (2013), including that of organic matter/fertiliser applied in addition to the chemical fertilisers. “This decision should be implemented from the coming Maha season and continued to Yala season next year to reap richer harvests prior to experimenting with alternate technologies.” To achieve this, the state and private sector organisations should be ready with the required inputs such as seed paddy, fertiliser and other agrochemicals, he says. State intervention is required to ensure fertiliser is available at the correct time at required quantities with acceptable quality, including storage with assured supply of fertiliser to fulfil the requirement of at least two-month period. “This will ensure continuous supply and give confidence to the farmers of the supply and availability of this important input at the correct time, which will lead to higher productivity.”

Drones and mechanisation

Use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, will be a critical precision agricultural tool to enhance efficiency of the agricultural inputs, points out Prof. Marambe. Such drones have become handy in agronomic practices such as seed-paddy sowing and application of fertiliser and pesticides (including herbicides). The techniques are currently used in some locations but require the recommendation from the DOA for its effective use. The second set of guidelines to support drone operations in agriculture has been drafted and need immediate release (with possibilities further updates) to support such activities in the productivity enhancement process. “Once calibrated and used by trained drone pilots, this UAV will provide uniform and effective seed paddy broadcasting and agrochemical applications by increasing their use efficiency and paddy productivity, with savings on time, water, labour and finances.” 

Mechanisation is also gaining momentum in Sri Lankan agricultural landscape, including paddy cultivation. “Though Sri Lankans are late adopters of technology, combined harvesters have been used since late 1990s for paddy harvest in many areas in the country. However, still, there are no recommendations made by the DOA on the use of combined harvesters in paddy identifying the speed of its movement/operations, optimum harvesting stage of paddy based on different varieties, minimising potential losses at harvesting, etc. These are essential requirements to ensure that the maximum benefits could be harnessed based on the efforts made by the private sector and the farming community on the use of such machinery in agriculture,” concludes Prof. Marambe.