Aquaculture to propel development

Ridma DISSANAYAKE

Aquaculture is a thrust area of fisheries development in the Mahinda Chintana vision for the future and has become the corner stone of the Fisheries Ministry’s development programme, said Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne.

The minister was addressing the inauguration ceremony of the ministerial meeting on aquaculture at the Hilton Hotel.

The meeting was held on the theme of Aquaculture for Food Security, Nutrition and Economic Development.

Aquaculture is one of the most recent origins and the ministry is targeting an aquaculture production of 95,000 metric tons by 2013, he added.

This is the first time the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) held a ministerial meeting in aquaculture of such nature in Asia. Ministers and senior officials from 20 countries in the Asia-Pacific region have participated.

“Sri Lanka initiated aquaculture development programmes in the late 70s and early 80s.

“They had an impact in increasing aquaculture production in the country. But because of the lack of a clear ,consistent policy on aquaculture development, aquaculture production dwindled in the late 80s.

“We have large areas of underutilized fresh water and brackish water bodies, specially in the North and East, where aquaculture production could not be promoted due to terrorism.”