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| Tuesday, 2 December 2003 |
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Dr. Ernest Abeyaratne - agricultural visionary by Derrick Schokman
On a recent visit to the Rajarata, I stopped off at Kalawewa, as I usually do because it is my favourite ancient reservoir. Looking across that vast expanse of water I remembered that the ashes of Dr. Ernest Abeyaratne, a former Director of Agriculture, had been scattered there. Eight years have gone by and my memories of him are still fresh and fragrant. I first came to know him when I joined his staff at the Agricultural Research Station, Maha Illuppallama in its formative years. It was the beginning of a career-long association. Under Ernest's tutelage we learners soon learned to put aside the prevailing concept that agricultural research had to be conducted on an individual crop basis, and began to study the relationship between the landscape, its soil moisture regimes, drainage potential and cropping possibilities. This new agro-ecological concept which placed crop research at the environmental base level was accepted as a guiding methodology in all future agricultural research. It led to defining agro-ecological regions islandwide which could be more efficiently researched and managed in respect of their physical differences. If such research was to have a positive impact with farmers, the new technologies, together with the necessary inputs, had to be made available to them to lift food production out of the doldrums. The existing agricultural services were quite inadequate for this purpose. In his new capacity as Deputy Director of Agriculture, Ernest was charged with the responsibility of reorganising the system. About 500 Agricultural Service Centres were accordingly established, staffed with trained Agricultural Instructors and Krushikarma Vyapathi Sevakas working to a plan, and equipped to supply necessary inputs like improved seed, fertilizers, agrochemicals and plant protection equipment, informative leaflets etc. When Ernest finally retired as Director of Agriculture, he was able to look back on a job well done: the Agricultural Service Centres had begun to pay dividends, evidenced by significant increases in the production of major food crops like rice, potatoes, onions, chillies, vegetables and yams. As an FAO Consultant Ernest spent almost 5 years in Indonesia giving farmers in that country the benefit of his research and extension achievements in Sri Lanka. His main life-work now done, Ernest devoted much of his time to the study of the Buddha Dhamma and 'bhavana'. He believed the Dhamma could add a much needed moral component to science. The Buddha had identified an impersonal Law of Moral Causation, which exists in nature, governs human behaviour, and determines the intensity and perpetuation of suffering. Scientists, however, have generally concerned themselves with investigating and discovering laws in nature, taking for granted that morality was the preserve of religion. If scientists were prepared to realise the truth of 'anatta', or the impersonality of all things, he believed they would become not only truly objective, but also wise and upright persons understanding the moral significance of their research. It was an inestimable privilege to have known and worked with Ernest, a person "whose armour was his honest thought, whose passions not his masters were, whose soul was prepared for death, untied unto the world by care of public fame or personal breath." The charm of his personality lay in its unruffled calm, which in turn derived from the spiritual depths in which rested the secure foundation of his being. May he attain Nibbana! |
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