The Paddy Marketing Board has completed its purchasing programme for the 2026 Yala season, closing the drive with more than 68,149 metric tonnes bought from farmers, the board announced on Thursday.
Nearly Rs. 8.35 billion was allocated for buying the season’s harvest, and the paddy of 33,988 farmers was purchased over the course of the programme, NewsFirst reported.
Ampara District was the largest single contributor, supplying 19,426.9 tonnes — about 28% of everything the board took in.
The programme closed well past its target
Purchasing opened on 13 July against a stated target of roughly 39,500 tonnes. The final total is 72% above that figure.
| Date | Tonnes bought |
|---|---|
| July 13 (opening day) | 25 |
| August 11 | 27,458 |
| August 25 | 45,362 |
| August 31 | 46,000+ |
| September 11 | 64,838 |
| September 24 (final) | 68,149 |
The overshoot is the reason the programme ran out of money before it ran out of harvest. The board began with Rs. 6 billion from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Lands and Irrigation, and the Cabinet added a further Rs. 2.5 billion in mid-September on a reimbursement basis, with harvesting still unfinished in five districts and three Mahaweli zones. Against the Rs. 8.5 billion ultimately made available, the roughly Rs. 8.35 billion spent leaves about Rs. 150 million — under 2% — undrawn.
What the final numbers imply
Rs. 8.35 billion across 68,149 tonnes works out to about Rs. 122.50 a kilogram, marginally above the Rs. 120 floor the government pays for Nadu. That is consistent with the Rs. 121.84 average implied on 11 September and indicates the bulk of the intake was Nadu rather than the higher-priced grades — Samba at Rs. 130 and Keeri Samba at Rs. 140.
Per farmer, the board bought an average of just over 2 tonnes for roughly Rs. 245,700 — almost exactly the per-farmer averages recorded a fortnight earlier, meaning the profile of who was selling did not shift as the season wound down.
The closing stretch was slow. Between 11 and 24 September the board added only 3,311 tonnes from a further 1,773 farmers — about 255 tonnes a day, against the 1,713 tonnes a day it was running in the 11 days to 11 September. Buying had by then narrowed to Mannar, Polonnaruwa, Kandy and Badulla as each district’s harvest cleared.
What has not been stated
The board did not say how much paddy it now holds in storage, how the stock will be released to millers or to the market, how much of the total came through the rice mill and cooperative channel opened in late August, or whether the Rs. 2.5 billion reimbursement has been settled.
