The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Land & Irrigation has initiated a Private - Public partnership with National Agribusiness Council (NAC) to provide research and support services to private sector under ADB funded Second Perennial Crop Development Project (SPCDP).

The NAC, under this programme, already has allocated Rs. 29.5 Million to eleven selected Contract Research Proposals. Further, NAC has communicated with about sixty private companies inviting research proposals.

Businessmen, investors and contractors believe that the R&D output of the public sector is not consistent with the demand of stakeholders.

However, it is also true to say that lack of funds available for research is also affecting this situation. Only a few organizations have taken the initiative to seek research funding from Council for Agricultural Research Policy (CARP) or any other organization like NAC through submission of proposals.

Researchers said that since there is no incentives introduced for researchers, and the remunerations are also not based on assessable Research & Development outputs, obviously researchers are de-motivated to undertake research work.

However, R&D activity is better handled in the Plantation / Crop Research Institutions, because they have the autonomy to use funds for R&D work. There is also greater participation of the stakeholders in the development of R&D programmes in these institutions.

Institute of Policy Studies too has quoted in their reports on policies and implementation for agri sector that, lack of research and technology in agriculture and agri-industry is a major constraint faced by the sector.

Although the liberalization of trade and investment policies has improved the access to import agro-processing technologies, many are unable to modernize their production due to lack of adaptive research taken place in the Island.