Towards innovative agriculture

Prof. Mahinda WIJERATNE

This article is to mark the Second National Symposium of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna

The Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna is launching its Second National Symposium on September 10, 2009 at Mapalana, Kamburupitiya. This event is also organized to mark the 31st year of its establishment.

Being the academic excellence in the region, the University of Ruhuna caters the nation with many aspects, and in particular the Faculty of Agriculture focuses on, academic programs for the undergraduates and postgraduates; implementation of innovative research programs; and dissemination efforts toward the main clientele, the farmers, with interventions.

The Faculty produces approximately 150 BSc (Agric.) graduates per annum. At present, past graduates are serving the country in the agriculture related fields with very high calibre which gained from the intellectual pursuit of the Faculty of Agriculture. Next, Faculty academics involve in various research programs, and as a result, generated innovative knowledge which fulfil one of the main tasks of the intellectuals serve in the higher educational institutes.

Policy makers

The knowledge dissemination aspect is fortified by linking policy makers, researchers, rural development workers and agricultural producers through different out reach programs.

The theme of the symposium, is ‘food for nation through innovative agriculture’, and it has emerged at a very important and most appropriate time.

The country experienced a 30 year spell of war and fortunately peace has become a reality, at present. Programs leading to rebuild the nation have become a must, especially in the North and East where re-cultivation is essential. In this scenario, feeding 20 million people, and establish food security for them is one of the important issues encountered by the stakeholders of agriculture. Therefore, the symposium provides a valid opportunity to bring all of them, especially the scientists and scholars to a one platform to discuss and make decisions pertaining to current issues of agricultural development.

Further, the symposium is in par with the State agricultural development programs, Let’s grow more food to develop the nation, Uthuru Vasanthay’, and Negenahira Navodaya.

The symposium covers the entire agricultural sector by extending its four sub-themes as (1) agriculture and environment, (2) food and livestock, (3) innovations and technologies, and (4) economic and dissemination interventions.

The Faculty organizing committee has called research papers on the above directions, and further, all such were evaluated by an external panel of expertise before accepting them for presentation. In fact, there is an oral session as well as a poster session. It is also important to state that an arrangement has been taken to have a student session during the symposium.

Future generation

The student presentations are based on selecting the best investigations executed by the current final year undergraduates. This effort will appreciate the outcome received by the blend of academic-student ventures.

More importantly, this opportunity encourages the future generation to understand the needs of the nation, and apparently undertake innovative research projected to real issues of the country.

To perform the academic programs, and also to facilitate knowledge generation and dissemination aspects, the Faculty confines to seven academic departments such as, (1) Agricultural Economics, (2) Crop Science, (3) Animal Science, (4) Agricultural Biology, (5) Food Science and Technology, (6) Agricultural Engineering and (7) Soil Science. Further, the Faculty has a farm which is being used for research, student practicals and also for production. Among the other facilities, well-equipped library and the computer centre render a significant service to the intellectual community.

At present, the field of agriculture is confronted with many challenges. First is to ensure food security in the form of availability and accessibility.

The phenomenon of food security is highly correlated to poverty. In Sri Lanka the poverty head count is estimated to as 15 percent. Moreover, there is a significant variation of this condition among urban, rural and estate communities.

It is also estimated that portion of the population which earns an income below 1 USD (Rs 115) and below 2 USD (Rs 130) per day is 5 percent and 40 percent, respectively. Furthermore, poor livelihoods (15 percent) who are under poverty line do not receive the standard per capita energy intake of 2030 K. Cal per day. Fortunately, very poor DS divisions of the country are well identified, so that clear targets can be made to uplift the socio-economic status of the beneficiaries.

All such indicate that poverty alleviation programs should play a major role in the entire development process. Advancement of agricultural development is a part and parcel of this scenario, especially as this country has a very sound base for agriculture, and further, resources are adequate to increase the agricultural production.

The departments of the Faculty, especially, Crop Science, Agricultural Biology and Animal Science, are making great contribution to increase the agricultural production through research interventions.

Rice-based products

The per capita consumption of staple food crop - rice stands at 100 kg per annum. According to the records the per capita wheat flour intake is about 40 kg per annum. We assume near self-sufficiently of rice in the context of above framework.

In fact, as a nation, it is highly necessary to increase the rice consumption, may be to per-capita consumption of 115 kg per annum, while reducing the wheat flour consumption. In order to influence this change, it is essential to develop rice-based products with consumer preference, change the attitudes of the consumers and further, implement policies to encourage rice production and consumption.

In this context, research is warranted to increase the rice production on one hand and evolve quality rice based products on the other. The food industry of the country has a great challenge in this mission.

The fuel crisis has come to an alarming situation for almost all the sectors in the global economies. The scientists are making efforts to find an alternative from the agricultural resources. Experiments are going on, but still reasonable results are not being achieved.

It is important to note that certain alternatives are successfully tested under laboratory conditions, and also on small scale. Most of the experiments have utilized agricultural by-products.

In the overall development process, knowledge generation, transfer and utilization are regarded as a continuum which involves major stakeholders in any of the fields. In the framework of the agricultural development, the researchers and the clientele the farmers are the main categories who make the pathway.

Though one of the tasks of the University academics is to fortify knowledge transfer component, this aspect is not being well addressed, mainly due to limitations in financial and human resources. However, with collaboration of Commonwealth of Learning (COL) the department of Agricultural Economics has launched a dissemination program for mushroom farmers in the surrounding area.

The financial deprivation came a cross the United States and the Europe also has brought negative consequences, as the foreign investments and demand for our export-oriented agricultural products decreased to a certain extent. As an example, rubber product manufacturing firms faced to a decreasing external demand and compelled to reduce the production.

This adverse situation resulted removal of employees. The outcome of negative consequences of world financial crises is an unavoidable situation faced by almost all the countries, but Sri Lankan economy defended well to minimize its negative effects. In fact, under limited foreign exchange earnings, it is not possible to spend much on foreign food products. Encourage to produce local product is one of the solutions which can be expected by the agricultural sector performance. Such effort will certainly be defended the Sri Lankan economy to refrain from global adverse impacts.

Quality standards

The development of value added products is another important aspect to be considered which need a research agenda as the market is competitive, especially with foreign products. The small and medium scale industries are making efforts to add value to raw materials. One major limitation in this connection is to achieve the necessary quality standards to compete with foreign products in the retail market.

At present, consumer preference is much towards better quality therefore, the signal to value chain is to improve the quality of the local products. In order to achieve this task, the Department of Food Science and Technology is enriched its research agenda to develop value-added products using under-utilized fruit species and fish species of the country.

Conservation of natural resources in the environment is another pressing need of the country. It is important to state that research programs of the Departments of Agricultural Biology and Agricultural Engineering have made a breakthrough in environmental conservation.

The collaborative research program with the Department of Agriculture focuses on in-situ conservation of endangered wild species of crops. Fine examples is protection of kapuru kurundu, which is a wild species limited only to few locations under this crop wild relatives research investigation.

The efforts made to re-cycle waste and community waste management program of the Department of Agricultural Engineering is in operation with the concepts of ‘green campus’ and ‘keep the environment clean’.

Further, biogas technology and capturing other renewable energy sources in the environment, consequences of climate change, etc. are other research highlights of this department. Conservation of soil is one of the important factors in overall development, not confined to agriculture.

The Department of Soil Science is very much oriented its research agenda to soil organic matter dynamics, soil nutrient re-cycling, maintenance of soil fertility, land conservation, etc. which are, of regional and national interest, indeed.

The Department of Crop Science is making continuous efforts on conservation, screening and propagation of rare medicinal plants. It is worthwhile to state that propagation of Rath handun has given a marked identity to the researchers of this department. This achievement is a valid example to demonstrate how the research outcome turned into practical application in the community. In fact, at present there is a very high demand for the plants even with comparatively higher price of Rs 500 per plant. In addition, this department executes research programs on tissue culture, organic agriculture and forest conservation.

Even through many attempts were taken to reduce the market margin, still there is a significant difference of prices between the farm-gate price and the retail price, especially for vegetables and fruits. Post-harvest losses are identified as one of the major reasons, and different treatments are employed to reduce these losses.

A significant number of studies were undertaken at the Faculty by student research projects which have resulted very appropriate practical solutions. All such interventions will be exposed to the public at this platform. However, in wholesale markets, market domination by different groups extract extra-ordinary profits by enforcing pressure on whole sellers and farmers. Therefore, market structure has to be developed with the Government intervention.

Crop production technology

The postgraduate programs leading to MSc in Agricultural Economics and Resource Management (AgERM), Master of Agribusiness Management (MABM), MSc in Animal Science, Master of Food Science and Technology (MFST) and MSc in Crop Protection are in demanding position. Moreover, the MSc in Crop Production Technology will be open for the candidates in the very near future.

One of the major objectives of designing and implementing these postgraduate programs is to utilize the available professional resources at the Faculty as well as in the other organizations. In fact, the Faculty includes 60 academics of which 30 members with doctorates.

It is also important to state that the postgraduate students undertake research studies to address the issues identified by their respective institutes. Hence, the outcome can be well incorporated to development plans for practical implementation.

Above are the major challenges faced by the agricultural sector and the research efforts and strategies adopted by the Faculty to resolve them. It is expected that at the symposium the scholars will address such issues based on empirical evidences to a very great extent.

The writer is the Symposium Coordinator, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna