Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has said farming communities have been left in an extremely helpless position under the current government, telling a farmers’ meeting in Dehiattakandiya that growers are selling paddy well below what the government itself says it costs to produce.
Premadasa was speaking on Saturday (24) at a farmers’ gathering held near the fair grounds in Dehiattakandiya, Hiru News reported. He argued that farmers had helped bring the present government to power at recent elections, and that the undertakings given to them had since been broken.
The pricing gap he set out
The Opposition Leader said the government puts the cost of producing a kilogram of paddy at around Rs 137, while paddy is currently being sold at between Rs 90 and Rs 100 a kilogram.
He said that although a price of Rs 120 has been set for Nadu paddy, that still leaves the farmer at a loss once production costs are taken into account, and that the government should deliver the guaranteed, stable price it promised.
Premadasa also accused large-scale mill owners of paying low prices when buying up the harvest, and said the government was not purchasing paddy in sufficient quantities.
Input costs and VAT
He said the prices of seed paddy, fertiliser, fuel and weedicides had all risen, and that there was no proper regulation of either the quality or the price of those inputs. He added that charging VAT on agricultural equipment had placed further pressure on farmers.
The remarks come in a Maha season in which the government has moved on input support. A fertiliser subsidy for the Maha season and a cultivation subsidy raised to Rs 60,000 per hectare have both been announced in recent weeks.
Sourcing and verification note
Hiru News is the only verified newsroom whose filing on this meeting could be dated at the time of writing. Ada Derana published a report on Premadasa accusing the government of deceiving the public with false promises; its pages cannot currently be retrieved for a verified publication date, so it is named here but not cited.
Searches for corroboration returned a closely matching Island report headlined “Sajith flays govt. for broken promises”, carrying detailed paddy and milling prices. That article is dated 4 February 2025 and describes a different occasion; its figures have not been used here. The figures above are Premadasa’s as reported on 24 October 2026.
