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| Tuesday, 10 June 2003 |
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by Uditha Kumarasinghe The Agriculture and Livestock Ministry has prepared a new action plan for the livestock sector with the intention of bringing the animal husbandry sphere into its expected targets which suffered a severe setback in the past few years due to lack of a systematic plan. The final workshop for the implementation of this new livestock development plan was held at the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute, Colombo on Friday with the participation of Agriculture and Livestock Minister S. B. Dissanayake and FAO representative for Sri Lanka and the Maldives Mazlan Jusoh. The Minister said a severe set back has been recorded in the livestock sector in the recent past which played a major role together with the agriculture sector to develop the country's economy earlier. In order to overcome this situation, the Ministry has formulated this new action plan which aims to uplift the animal husbandry sector by creating a market oriented livestock production line to cater to the local and international demands. Dissanayake said last year only 61000 Metric tons of milk powder had been imported to Sri Lanka spending Rs. 10 billion in foreign exchange. The Minister said earlier the subjects of agriculture and livestock functioned under two separate ministries. Therefore, the functioning of these two connected subjects under two different ministries has directly led to the collapse of both the agriculture and livestock sectors. Having considered this situation, timely decision was taken by the Government to merge these two subjects under the purview of a one Ministry. As a result of these timely moves taken by the Government, the Ministry was able to prepare a broad seven year National policy on Agriculture and Livestock with effect from 2003. This policy intends to mobilise state and private sector investments and human resources to transform the domestic agriculture and livestock industry to a sustainable economic force for the development of the country, he said. Meanwhile, the Ministry has taken measures to popularise the subject of animal husbandry in rural areas through the Samurdhi movement. This aims to provide a good source of income to the rural community. Attention has also been focused to reduce production cost in the animal husbandry sector and increase production and consumption of animal products, he said. |
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