Sri Lanka has raised a maize production forecast for the main Maha cultivation season in 2018 to 243,888 metric tonnes with 79 percent of the targeted are being cultivated by January as rains returned. The department of agriculture said 69,500 hectares of maize had been sowed up to January 2018, up from only 45,245 in December, when only 153,978 metric tonnes of maize was expected. The 2018 production target is up 32 percent from last year’s 163,000 tonnes. With the usually small Yala minor season output also down last year, poultry feed producers were hit when they were forced by maize at high prices from third parties who had import licenses. The Yala production was only 38,484 metric tonnes.