Two million families engaged in farming - Minister Abeywardena

by L.S. Ananda WEDAARACHCHI

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.