On May 10, the Minister of Agriculture of Sri Lanka Mahinda Amaraweera instructed the relevant officials to immediately conduct an inquiry into the opinion presented by some parties that 65 percent of the urea fertilizer used for paddy cultivation is wasted and only 35 percent of the urea fertilizer used is effective.

Minister Amaraweera gave these instructions during a discussion held on May 10 with the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture of Sri Lanka, Mr. Gunadasa Samarasinghe and a group of officials on the promotion of export agricultural crops.

The Minister of Sri Lanka advised to prepare a report based on the amount of urea fertilizer used for rice cultivation in countries like the European Union, China, India and Vietnam, and to investigate whether there is any truth in the opinion that has been published regarding the application of urea fertilizer.

Considering the standard of urea fertilizer in Sri Lanka, it is recommended to use only urea fertilizer with biurate percentage less than 1% for paddy cultivation. (Biuret is toxic to plants at a concentration of 3%). But China, Great Britain and even the United States consider the percentage of biurate in urea fertilizers to be more than 1.5%.

Therefore, the Minister of Sri Lanka instructed the officials to submit the recommendations of an expert committee for more effective use of 100 percent of the urea fertilizers used for crops while protecting the quality of the urea fertilizers currently used in the country.