Development of agricultural sector

Cultivate export crops under ‘One Crop One Village’ program:

Ariya RUBASINGHE

Sri Lanka is gifted with fertile land throughout the length and breadth of the country. Majority of Sri Lankans are engaged in farming and historical records indicate that vast farming communities existed in all parts of the country with giant tanks and dagobas as epicentres.

First part of this article was published yesterday

In the year 2007, 157 TV programs, 1,499 radio programs, 10 exhibitions and 212,305 distribution of print material, handbills and holding training programs were implemented. In the year 2008, 286 TV programs, 4,208 radio programs, seven exhibitions and 299,000 distribution of print material, handbills and holding training programs were implemented. In the year 2009, 87 TV programs, 2,106 radio programs were conducted and distribution of promotional material, handbills and exhibition of posters were carried out through the Deyata Kirula exhibition. Similarly 1,255 TV and radio programs, 71,120 publications, 10 agricultural exhibitions and agricultural training programs to 2,341 farmers were done in 2010. These activities will continue uninterruptedly in the forthcoming years as well.

One crop one village

Cultivation of specially identified crops, mainly with commercial value particular to each agro-climatic zone, expanding market facilities and promoting value added crop based production are the main objectives of this program.

Main activities implemented through this program are; Establishment of commercial cultivation with improved crop varieties according to agro-climatic and environmental conditions, rehabilitation of existing crops, production of high quality planting material, awareness and capacity building, expansion of market infrastructure and provision of implements through farmer organizations to improve product quality.

Under this program the expected target is to establish 350 fruit and other crop villages, four mushroom and bee keeping villages in 2010. It is expected to establish 500 fruit villages and 50 field crop villages in 2011.

Export agriculture crops

Without any foreign assistance, Sri Lankan Government has spent over Rs 624 million for the development of the export agriculture sector during the last five year period. Under this program 8,991 hectares of new land was cultivated with Export Agriculture Crops (EAC) and 8,886 hectares of less productivity lands with EAC cultivations were developed to increase the productivity.

With the prime objective of quality improvement of the EAC products, 74 farm level processing centres, seven group processing centers and 120 individual processing units were established spending Rs 24 million.

During the last five year period 51.6 million worth of certified planting materials were issued to EAC cultivators and amount of ginger and turmeric seed material issued were 395 and 172 Metric Tons respectively.

Farmer training classes were conducted at National, District and Divisional level to provide latest technical information and during the last five years over 200,000 families and 1.0 million persons have gained benefit from this. Those farmers were encouraged to adopt good agricultural practices, integrated soil fertility management and integrated pest management and production of organic fertilizers in the field. Agriculture Ministry provided market linkage and quality information with collaboration of Sri Lanka Standard Institute, Export Development Board and the Department of Commerce.

In the 70s Sri Lanka had an excellent system of paddy purchasing by the paddy Marketing Board without letting the unscrupulous traders to exploit the farmers and a well-established marketing system through the CWE outlets. These two giant and national institutions were completely destroyed by the previous government and the movable and immovable properties owned by these institutions were given to political cohorts at highly undervalued prices. The government has revived these institutions and they have become another impetus to the farmers. The Paddy Marketing Board purchasing centres and the Sathosa outlets are being established throughout the country to help the farming community.

Fertilizer subsidy

It was pledged in the Mahinda Chintana that “I will make arrangements to offer 50 kg bags of all types of inorganic fertilizer at Rs 350 to farmers in order to increase the agricultural and plantation productivity”.

Although the fertilizer price in the world market has shot up many fold compared to the price prevalent in 2005, the President continue to provide fertilizer at this price in fulfilling the pledge given and intends to carry out this measure in the future as well. Given below are details of fertilizer distributed on this basis and the expenditure annually about Rs 30 million incurred by the government.

Under this program, the government has spent Rs 10,700 million in 2006, Rs 10,998 million in 2007, Rs 26,500 million in 2008, Rs 26,935 million in 2009 and Rs 20,677 million up to November 2010.

Popularizing of organic fertilizer in food crop sector

Promoting the production of organic manure has become an urgent need in view of the necessity of securing higher yield, conserving soil fertility and establishing a sustainable system in agriculture. To achieve these objectives it has been planned to make the base use of the abundantly available organic residues and animal waste for crop production promote livestock rearing in order to increase the organic manure; promote cultivation of multi-purpose plants such as Gliricidia, Walsuriyakantha and annual green manure crops such as Sesbania and Crotalaria to promote production of compost.

Through promoting production of organic manure, it is expected to reduce importation of chemical fertilizers by 25 percent. In this regard necessary training, media and publicity and field demonstrations were organized for enhancing the required knowledge and skills relating to production and the use of organic manure. Total of Rs 635 million has been invested for the past three years and Rs 350 million will be spending during the year 2011.

Furthermore, Organic Fertilizer Production Villages will be established under Agrarian Services Department islandwide to promote organic fertilizer among paddy farmers. For this program alone Rs 150 million will be invested during the years 2010 and 2011.

For the last five years around 13,000 stakeholders have been trained. Under different activities of the project it has produced 71,000 million of compost up to this year. Furthermore ten laboratories have been developed with supplying lab equipments and analytical chemicals.

The participation of all the Municipal Councils, Urban Councils and schools will be sought for establishment of compost units and home gardening program and assistance will be given for these institutions to strengthen the activities related to compost production already in place.

Re-cultivation of abandoned paddy lands

Long abandoned paddy lands are being put under cultivation by this program, 225 villages including those in the North and East (95,644 acres) have been selected to implement this program. Activities implemented to achieve this target are, restoring water ways and canals in cases of abandoning due to lack of irrigation facilities, providing agricultural inputs for the farmers in re-settled areas and constructing salt water controlling structures in salinity affected areas.

Contribution of agricultural sector

The Government has spent a colossal amount of money since 2006 for the development of the agricultural sector and raise the living standards of the farming community. Activities carried out through this massive expenditure include, providing subsidy for the fertilizer, coordination of district level agricultural activities to maximize the extent of land under cultivation, introduction of new crop varieties, increased participation of farm women including introduction of income saving strategies and marketing awareness, introduction of methods to small farming groups to maximize their production, introduction of methods increase the production of alternative crops through utilization of small-scale irrigation facilities, establishment of bee-keeping villages and providing them knowledge about bee-keeping, encouragement of farmers for the cultivation of Soya beans and other grains, establishment of fruit producing villages, establishment of integration between small farmer families, providing knowledge about home gardening with various kinds of vegetables and fruits, encouragement of farmers to cultivate export crops, under the concept of ‘One Crop One Village’ program encouragement to grow Pineapple, Rambutan, Mango, Guava, Durian and other fruits, mushrooms etc and provision of plant material.

Seed production

As a result the rice production has reached self-sufficiency level and maize production was increased to 80 percent of the national requirement.

In 2011 also most of these programs will be continued with inclusion of several new programs. These new programs will be focused mainly on reaching in self-sufficiency levels in some selected crops such as Maize, Big Onion and Red onion by 2013. Big onion cultivation will be distributed to new suitable areas and to off seasons. Big onion seed production also will be increased to meet the total seed requirement of the country.

A new program by the name of ‘Community based seed production villages’ will be started to increase the availability of good quality seeds and planting materials with the participation of all units of the departments and institutes under Agriculture Ministry and selected farming communities.

Another program titled ‘Model Villages’ will be started to disseminate knowledge about the new technologies invented by the Agriculture Department.

The writer is Media Centre for National Development Director General, Mass Media and Information Ministry

Courtesy:www.development.lk