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Subsidies essential for farmers - SB

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

Agriculture and Livestock Minister S.B.Dissanayake yesterday said the Treasury or its high officials cannot take decisions on the country's agriculture sector.

"At present I have a conflict with the entire Treasury regarding the cutting down of Ministry funds. As the country's Agriculture Minister, I cannot be satisfied with the procedure followed by the Treasury to cut down the fertiliser subsidy," the Minister told a press conference yesterday.

He said the entire world, even developed countries like the USA grants various subsidies to farmers. In order to develop the country's agriculture, subsidies have to be given to the farmers, he added.

The Minister said as a result of the action taken by the Treasury to cut down the fertilizer subsidy, the production cost of farmers have increased. Immediate steps have to be taken to increase the harvest obtained from a hectare.

"The intention of the Treasury is to continue agriculture without giving any subsidies to farmers. The Treasury withdrew the allocations made to the Agricultural and Agrarian Insurance Board (AAIB) last year. At present, over 800,000 farmers obtained pension benefits under the farmer pension scheme implemented by the AAIB. Therefore a decision should be taken whether this pension is given to the farmers or not," he said.

Dissanayake said the Prime Minister should intervene to settle this problem by providing guidelines to the Treasury to release the required funds to the Agriculture Ministry to implement its proposed activities.

"Otherwise, decisions in relation to the agricultural sector cannot be taken according to the ideas of Treasury instructors."

However the Premier has a key interest to develop the agriculture and pledged to spend nearly Rs.2 billion for agriculture for 2003 and 2004 utilising the funds granted to Sri Lanka by the Tokyo aid conference, the Minister said.

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