Two million families engaged in farming - Minister Abeywardena
by L.S. Ananda WEDAARACHCHI
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CIRDAP Director General, Dr. Durga Paudyal presents a memento to
Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena at the
inauguration of the 27th CIRDAP committee meeting held in
Colombo last week. Agriculture Ministry Secretary W.
Sakalasooriya (extreme left) HARTI Director Lalith Kantha
Jayasekera (extreme right). pix: Vajira Kodituwakku
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Around two million families in Sri Lanka are engaged in farming as
their main occupation, said Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa
Abeywardena.
Over 70 percent of the paddy lands belong to smallholders who own
less than one hectare of land. The rural areas form about 70-80 percent
of the country, he said. The 27th Technical Committee meeting of the
Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and Pacific (CIRDAP) was
held at the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute
(HARIT) in Colombo last week. Delivering the inaugural address, the
Agriculture minister said that Sri Lanka is predominamt an agricultural
country in which agriculture impinges on the life of every person in
some form or the other, either as a producer, a consumer, or a person in
the marketing chain or the service sector.
Agriculture and rural development policies, programs and projects are
crucial for Sri Lanka's economic development. The share of the
agriculture contribution to the GDP has declined continuously from 50.1
in 1950 to 12 percent in 2010. The contribution by the agriculture
sector to employment has decreased from 36.8 percent in 2010."
"After three decades of terrorism Sri Lanka has now entered a new
path of economic growth and development.
The "motto" of the current policy is "Winning the economic war" and
making Sri Lanka the Wonder of Asia." This bears the priority in
agriculture and rural development.
The current economic development strategy of Sri Lanka is titled
Mahinda Chintana or "Vision of Mahinda" to achieve growth rates of over
8 percent per annum and to double the current per capita income to reach
US $4,000 BY 2016, the minister said.
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