Panabokke: Science’s proud patriarch

Dr. C. R. Panabokke is an internationally renowned soil scientist and a pioneer in agricultural research in Sri Lanka. With a sharp and agile mind, he is still occupied with his academic work even at the age of 86. The dining table in his sitting room is strewn with books and documents. His experiences are as rich and fertile as the soil he studied during his youth. Reminiscences of Gold met with this versatile scientist at his residence to take a glimpse at his past.

“I was born at my ancestral home in Panabokke, a village situated in the ancient Udu Nuwara division of the Kandy district. In our house there was an Atuwa built in 1845 on 12 stone pillars. We used to play hide and seek there. I was third in the family and the first male. At the age of four I was boarded at Hillwood Girls’ High School Kandy. Even though it was a girls’ school, they took in boys up to a certain age. I was there from 1930 – 1934. I had a very pleasant life there.

There was a boys section and a girls section. There were six boys other than myself. It was a beautiful place. The best teacher we had was Peggy Keyt, who happened to be George Keyt’s sister. She took us on nature study tours on the Upper Lake Road. We used to go to the natural ponds where there were tadpoles. We collected tadpoles, brought them back and put them in a basin creating a nice thing with stones and moss and observed the progress of the tadpoles every week and how they became little frogs and jumped out and disappeared.

I learnt the alphabet and other things but the nature studies stands out in my mind. That was the best way to teach children. In the school at that time we all went barefoot. We wore shoes only for formal occasions. We lived in a dorm at Hillwood. Life was very pleasant and every holiday we used to go home. My competitive spirit started in school because the girls thought they were superior to the boys. We were outnumbered and had to show we were superior to them,” said Panabokke.

Training programme

At the age of eight, Panabokke went to St, Anthony’s College. “There at the very first year I got Malaria and tonsillitis and I was taken to Colombo. So my schooling got interrupted for two terms. The rumour in school was that I had died. I was at the college boarding house. During the Second Word War the school was taken over by the army and we had to become day scholars. Those days the rules applied to everyone. There was no favouritism.”

Initially Panabokke wanted to do engineering. So he sat for the Technical College entrance examination and got admitted to the Technical College. He was there only for one term and he did not like the environment of the place. So he decided to join St. Benedict’s College to do his University Entrance Examination. “I spent only one year at St. Benedict’s College. I enjoyed my studies there because the teachers were excellent. I gained entrance to the University of Ceylon in 1945.”

Though he was good in Physics, he decided to do a special degree in Chemistry. He graduated with Honours in Chemistry from the University of Ceylon, Colombo, in 1949. He joined the Department of Agriculture and initially worked for sugar cane research in Polonnaruwa.

“The Sugar cane research was very routine so I told the Director that I would like to go to a place like Maha-Illuppallama where more interesting work was going on. So I was posted to Maha-Illuppallama and that place fitted me very well. There was no electricity there at that time. No proper quarters. There was no cinema. But life was enjoyable. I did bird watching and a quite a lot of interesting things. There we had a close encounter with a rogue elephant who chased us. I was on the pillion of the bike. The trunk of the elephant was almost touching me. It was a narrow escape.”

Striking feature

Dr. Panabokke is one of Asia’s most renowned soil scientists. How did he get his training in this field? “Fortunately for me the FAO at the time was starting a soil fertility training course. I was selected to go for a three-month training programme in Coimbatore, India. There were people from seven countries. That is where I got my formal training in Soil Science. We got lectures from the world’s foremost authority on Soil Science Robert Peddleton. Later I went to Australia.

I was there for two and a half years and I did my Ph.D. in Soil Science at the Waite Agricultural Institute, University of Adelaide. “The best thing that happened to me was that I was exposed to Australia because the soils in Australia are comparable with the soils found here in Sri Lanka. The climate was also close to us. I was fortunate to go to Australia at a time when Australia was solving similar problems like us in relation to Soil Science. The striking feature in Sri Lanka is that soil differs within very short distances, especially the dry zone.”

After obtaining his Ph.D., Dr. Panabokke returned to Maha-Illuppallama. In the 1960s the Irrigation Department received very large grants from the government. Since Dr. Panabokke was an expert on soil and water management, he got involved with projects carried out in collaboration with the Department of Irrigation.

Soil survey

Dr. Panabokke is credited with many accomplishments. He led a team of scientists to undertake a proper soil survey of the entire island and produced the first modern soil map of Sri Lanka. He was also instrumental in producing the first Agro-Ecological Map of Sri Lanka in 1975 which is considered a model for all countries in the Asian region.

During the period 1975 -1977 he worked as the Director/ Research in the Department of Agriculture. “That was the best period of my life as I developed new things. There was a good staff with people of very high quality. In 1979 I became Director of Agriculture. By that time the department was well set. 1979 – 1983 was a glorious period.

The quality of the staff was such that the department could raise any number of foreign grants to support its projects.” During his tenure as the Director of Agriculture, he was also instrumental in setting up Regional Agricultural Research Centres in several places such as Aralaganwila, Makandura and Kilinochchi.

After retirement he also worked in several International Research organizations: Senior Research Fellow at the International Service for National Agriculture Research based at the Hague and as a Irrigation agronomist at the International Irrigation Management Institute (IIMI).

There are many publications to his credit which deal with several aspects of Soil Science such as soil survey, land classification, land use planning, soil fertility, agro climatology and agro Ecology. Small Village Tank Systems of Sri Lanka is among his highly acclaimed publications and the fact that it was written when he was in his eighties is testimony to his agile mind and vast experience. He has argued that the small village tank system in the North Central region “is an outcome of the local genius of the early settlers of this landscape rather than one introduced by early Aryan settlers as opined by several historians.” He has further argued that such small scale irrigation management systems were unique to Sri Lanka.

For his achievements, Panabokke has been awarded many honours: National Science Council Award for Outstanding Research (1982); the Presidential Award of Vidya Jyothi (1986); and the Presidential Award Deshamanya (1998). He also served as the Chancellor of the University of Sabaragamuwa.

When asked about his feelings on being honoured in this manner, he said: “the biggest satisfaction I get is when I have shed light on a thing that has been obscure. I am satisfied that I have been able to push the frontiers of knowledge from which other people can build upon. My greatest achievement is that I have been able to find the true origins of irrigation in this country.”