Bee keeping and medicinal plants promoted in Wayamba to save forex

by S.M. Wijayaratne - Kurunegala Cor.

Seventy Eight unemployed youths were trained successfully on bee-keeping by the NWP Provincial Ministry of Agriculture in 2013.

The Ministry has allocated Rs. 450,000 to expand bee-keeping in Kurunegala and Puttalam Districts of the NWP this year.

A large quantity of bee honey is required to manufacture ayurvedic medicine and hence around 100 persons who are interested in bee-keeping would be trained this year too.

They would be provided with equipment and technical know-how to carry out bee-keeping as a profitable source of self employment. At present, Sri Lanka has to import raw material from India to prepare effective ayurvedic drugs spending millions of rupees.

Therefore, many rare and valuable medicinal plants must be cultivated locally to meet the requirements of physicians here utilising uncultivated lands available in premises of Buddhist temples, government institutions and schools.

Senior school students should be encouraged to grow herbs on a Commercial seale and then, they can earn some extra money by selling their produce to the Ministry of Indigenous Medicine.

If this proposed program is implemented, a large sum of foreign exchange can be saved as Sri Lanka has to purchase aurvedic raw material from neighbouring countries.

"The Association of Ayurvedic Physicians of the Kurunegala District hopes to call upon the Minister of Indigenous medicine and Kurunegala District parliamentarian Salinda Dissanayake to explore all possible ways and means on cultivating of rare herbs locally, said Dr. H.M. Herathbanda, the President of Kurunegala District Ayurvedic Physicians' Association at a meeting of physicians recently at Bingiriya MMV in Kurunegala.