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Maize harvest increases

Maize harvest has shown a significant growth in Sri Lanka. Batticaloa district recorded the highest maize production in its history this year, Eastern Province Agriculture Ministry sources said.

Maize is mainly cultivated in Anuradhapura, Ampara, Badulla, Moneragala, Matale and Batticaloa. The maize cultivated area is estimated at over 2,000 hectares. These districts account for over 80 percent of the total production in the country.

The total extent of land under maize is 23,000-28,000 hectares. The annual production is around 35,000 MT. Maize is primarily a rain fed crop cultivated during the maha season. The primary demand for maize comes from the rural population .

Maize is one of the subsidiary food crops cultivated in the highlands as a mixed crop together with cowpea, green gram, groundnut, chilli and finger millet.

The market surplus of maize is 60 percent of production. The remaining 40 percent is consumed by the farmer’s household. The peak period of sales is in the first month after harvest. January has the highest sale for maize in Sri Lanka.

The most common method of marketing maize is to sell it to traders in the village or in the bazaar. Collecting agents also come to the farms to purchase maize.

A large scale maize farmer in Anuradhapura P Jinadasa told the Daily News that there are two major constraints identified for the expansion of the crop acreage. They are lack of marketing facilities and fair prices for crops, he said.

“We toil to sell maize surplus at a reasonable price to the market but vendors who come to the chenas purchase them at very low rate. They buy one corn cob at Rs 4 and sell it to the consumer at Rs 15 or 20,” he said.

Middlemen get a huge profit though the farmer is unable to meet even the cost of production. If the Government will intervene to purchase maize harvest during the next season, we will increase the extent of land under maize cultivation,” he said.

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