Importance of agricultural education

Speech delivered by Prof. Wiswa Warnapala, Minister of Higher Education at the 60th Anniversary of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya on October 8, 2008.

Excerpts

The suitability of Agriculture as a University subject has been questioned in Britain and the Pilkington Committee in 1966 argued that Agricultural Colleges should be allowed to award degrees. In Britain, the UGC, in early sixties, wanted Universities in Cambridge, Glasgow and Leeds to discontinue their undergraduate courses in Agriculture, and the plan was to transfer Agricultural Degrees from Universities to Colleges. It was in this background that a debate took place on the question of the suitability of Agriculture as a University subject, and all the arguments made then in respect of the matter are relevant in the given context of Sri Lanka.

Food, major problem

All of us subscribe to the idea that feeding the expanding population is the major problem in the world, and the recent food crisis, which certain countries experienced, showed that world food production has not kept pace with the population growth. All types of problems - the moral, social, economic and political - are associated with the marked disparity between population and their food supplies, and this is certain to have repercussions upon the availability of food. It is on the basis of the need to grow more food that the Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, has organised the ‘Api Wawamu - Rata Nagamu’ program of agricultural development in the country. Such problems associated with the need to produce more food offer challenges to any intellectual community, and it, therefore, means that agriculture is a subject of realistic study within Universities. It could be argued that any University without a School of Agriculture would be incomplete in its intellectual outlook.

Agriculture is recognised as a University subject not to train farmers but to train the professional worker who will be engaged in basic agricultural research, development research and extension work. On the basis of this experience, one can say that there is no doubt that agriculture is capable of adding to the intellectual outlook of any University but it can only do this with the right kind of approach and the relevancy kind of organisation.

In the past sixty years, Sri Lanka has been successful in making use of the Faculties of Agriculture and the Agricultural professionals for the process of development in the country. It has been achieved through the production of a trained professional cadre and through research relevant to agricultural development. In addition to the Faculty, the Post-Graduate Institute of Agriculture (PGIA) has made a considerable impact on the intellectual and professional life of the country.

Seven courses

Today, on the basis of the wide experience of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Peradeniya - which is at the apex of the Agricultural Studies pyramid - all Universities in the country have given prominence to Agricultural Studies and it is through them that an intellectual community engaged in Agricultural Studies has been created and they, in their own way, constituted a vital segment of the professional and intellectual elite in the country. In the established formal system of University education, seven Universities offer different courses in Agriculture, and the course structures have been modernised with a view to incorporating various inputs associated with modern technology. It is here that the relevant innovations have been made; while the University of Peradeniya is offering a 4 year course in Agricultural Technology and Management, the other six Universities offer a 4 year course in Agricultural Sciences.

Food Science and Nutrition has developed as an associated discipline and four Universities, including the University of Peradeniya, are conducting courses in Food Science and Technology and Food Science and Nutrition. All new Universities, which we established a decade ago, have gone in the same direction, and this kind of diversification, on the basis of country’s needs, is fundamentally important as the Universities are expected to adjust themselves to the changing global situation. They cannot remain as purveyors of knowledge; they need to emerge as creators of relevant developmental knowledge with which a country could move forward in the direction of a knowledgeable society. In the past several decades, the Faculty of Agriculture helped the public sector research institutions to undertake research in the field by producing the required personnel and this contribution needs more recognition. Now I would like to focus your attention on the student intake to the Faculties of Agriculture in the respective Universities.

The Faculty of Agriculture began in 1947 with 17 students, and this was not a reason for concern because the University of Ceylon admitted only 904 students in 1942. It took more than three decades to attract students to specialise in Agriculture and the intake registered a rapid increase only in the seventies, eighties and nineties; by 1992 the annual intake was nearly 300. The employability of the Agricultural graduate had an impact on the increase in the student intake. The intake at present is as follows:

These figures show that more than one thousand students are engaged in studying Agriculture or an allied subject, and this is the number within the existing formal system.

When the food crisis, primarily the rice shortage hit other part of the world, the view was expressed that world agriculture was facing major crisis posing risks for poor people’s livelihood and food security.

All countries, specially those rice-producing countries, thought in terms of action plans; comprehensive social protection programs were recommended and the most important recommendation was the call for more investment in agriculture, particularly in agricultural science and technology.

The need of the hour was to construct policies at a national and global scale to address the long term problems of increasing the supply, and the agricultural experts were asked to play a role in creating a world where all people have enough food for a productive livelihood.

This was the challenge before all agriculturists of the world as the growing population is demanding more and different kind of food.

Agriculture vital

Agriculture is vital for the survival of the people in the developing countries. Nearly 885 million people live in rural areas of the world and most depend on agriculture for their livelihood. It therefore, means that a dynamic and inclusive agriculture could help in the reduction of rural poverty and thereby help the given country to realise the Millennium Development Goals on poverty and hunger.

For instance, China’s rapid growth in agriculture was responsible for the decline in rural poverty for 53 per cent in 1981 to 8 per cent in 2001.

At present, Sri Lanka is pursuing an ambitions policy of agricultural development, focusing more on food production, the purpose of which is to foster growth and reduce poverty.

The aim of this policy is to convert agriculture into an engine of growth, and it is only through such a strategy that the country could be made self-sufficient in food.

It is here that the trained agricultural professional could assist the Government in formulating the right policies for the agricultural development of the country.

What we need to emphasise is the need to resolve the on-going struggle between the demands of equity and the requirements of excellence. If we fail to address these issues, the quality of University education would begin to decline.

To make University education, in whatever the field of study or discipline, more meaningful and relevant, changes are necessary in the existing structure of the Universities, and the changes need to be made from the point of view of global changes so that Sri Lankan Universities can become global players in highly competitive global market of higher education.

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University student intake 
University of Peradeniya	     	220 
University of J’Pura	       		 30 
University of Jaffna	       		 60 
University of Ruhuna	     		150 
Eastern University	     		120 
Rajarata University	     		130 
Sabaragamuwa University	   		 85 
Uva - Wellassa University	         50 
Wayamba University	     		200