Increase food production - Chambers

Sanjeevi JAYASURIYA

Sri Lanka needs to focus on increasing food production to face future challanges, Chamber officials said.

Lal de Alwis	Sarath de Silva	Tissa Jayaweera

There will be continuous changes in the weather patterns and more floods could be expected. The country needs to have strategic planning to modify its agricultural production. We need to strive to become self-sufficiency in food production, National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka President Sarath de Silva told the Daily News Business.

“There is a need to use large scale land to increase cultivation in the areas of agriculture, horticulture and orchard cultivation. The private sector should be given these lands for mega scale production,” he said.

The Government has taken measures to release land at present. This process should be expedited to take advantage of the clear weather now prevailing.

“We should now get into serious agriculture. Though we are 80 percent self-sufficient in rice production, other food items too are important. This is the time for speedy action,” he said.

The country needs a long term plan and innovative approach to extend on agriculture. As a supportive measure the Government should continue tax holiday for agricultural sector, National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka President Lal de Alwis said.

“It is necessary to take a cue from our neighbouring countries such as India and Bangladesh where more incentives are provided for the agricultural sector. The strategy should be to extend the tax holiday for at least for another five years,” he said.

“We need to diversify the agricultural base. The fertilizer subsidy for agriculture is a necessity and also the support needs to be extended to minor crop cultivation. We are an agricultural country and more economic activities are revolved around agriculture which plays a predominant role in the development,” he said.

The key factor the agricultural sector could benefit is the reduction in the borrowing cost. This has resulted in application of more technology in the process.

“The benefit of the opening of the Northern and Eastern provinces could be felt in years to come and the contribution of these provinces will be significant in future.

Therefore this is the ideal time to concentrate on increased food production,” he said.

The country needs to grow more food items as a measure to overcome the anticipated food crisis.

The floods should be considered as a positive impact on agriculture as flooding will result in increase fertility in river banks, Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry President Tissa Jayaweera said.

“We need to take the benefit of floods. More people should be encouraged to take into agriculture.

The increase in the production will benefit the country domestically as well as by exporting,” he said.