Usually, May and June are the fertilizer application period. This time around the weather has been excellent for application of fertilizer due to ample rain. But we cannot meet the demand in the market place due to extreme supply-side constraints with regards to phosphate we are facing at the moment,” the head of a leading fertilizer manufacturer said on grounds of anonymity.
He further said the supply of phosphate has been deteriorating for the past six weeks or so and stressed that the situation has now become acute.
“Fertilizer companies, depending on their production capacities, always keep a buffer stock of phosphate. But due to the extreme supply-side deteriorations, almost all of the buffer stocks have now depleted,” he added.
State-owned Lanka Phosphate Limited is the only company that provides rock phosphate in the country and the company has exclusive mining rights over 450 hectares of land in Eppawala, where a large rock phosphate deposit is located.
It is estimated that Lanka Phosphate Limited meets more than 60 percent of the entire phosphorus fertilizer requirements of the country’s plantation sector. The products of Lanka Phosphate are only sold in the domestic market place.
http://www.dailymirror.lk/business/features/48030-low-phosphate-output-likely-to-trigger-fertilizer-shortage.html