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| Tuesday, 10 August 2004 |
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Enhancing domestic agriculture: Food production for self-sufficiency by Prof. H. P. M. Gunasena - Executive Director, Sri Lanka Council forAgricultural Research Policy The economic policy framework of the Government has emphasized food self-sufficiency through modernization of agriculture with particular attention on value addition using post harvest technologies.
Several strategies have been proposed to achieve the proposed targets. This approach is of utmost importance to promote rural development and reduce the widespread poverty among the people of this country. The focus is on population increase, thousands of people increasing annually, although at a low growth of 1.16%, unlike in the other South Asian countries. The increase of population in this country has to be understood not only in terms of the low annual birth rates but also considering the low annual death rates. The life expectancy is over 70.7 years for males and 75.4 years for females and as a result of this the population at any given time remains high. The proportion of the population over 65 years is projected to be about 12% by 2020. The Sri Lankan population, which presently stands at 19.25 million will increase to 20.87 million in 2011 and 22.794 million in 2021 and extra food has to be found for the additional mouths to feed. Although there has been a steady growth in population, the food production on the other hand not demonstrated the same pattern of growth. Several major issues confront increasing agricultural production. The gradual reduction of agricultural land, agricultural population and agricultural labour, land degradation and declining per capita land, pose a threat to future productivity. The majority is small and marginal producers with land holdings less than 02 ha. The per capita land availability is declining further due to population pressure, urbanization, industrial and housing development. The small farm size is a dominant factor in agricultural production. The water resource scarcity is another major concern as there is a competitive demand for water by the domestic, agricultural and industrial sectors. There is always a political desire to satisfy the domestic demand and the emerging industrial demand at the expense of the agricultural demand. Excessive tapping of ground water by digging of deep wells in some dry zone areas has created further problems due to the falling of water tables. The present plan of the Ministry of Agriculture to renovate 10,000 tanks is a decision in the correct direction to conserve water, the critical factor in agricultural production. Sri Lanka is not short of water like some of the other neighbouring countries like India or Pakistan. The so-called dry zones are not really dry in that sense, but the main problem is the poor distribution pattern of rainfall, lack of proper water harvesting, conservation and management systems. In the years ahead, the country has to produce larger and larger quantities of food from less and less land. The easier options such as expansion of land area has been already used up. Even if extra land is to be developed for agriculture, it will be at a tremendous cost. In the midst of this ecological degradation has set in depriving the resource base from where food is to be produced. All productive lands in the coconut growing areas are being sold for industrial and housing purposes. Therefore, implementing of proper land use policies is urgently required. The fundamental challenges facing agricultural development in Sri Lanka are, firstly, to increase domestic food production in a sustainable manner to meet the food requirement of the increasing population and secondly, to increase the volume of exports. Therefore, like any other food deficient country, Sri Lanka has to increase the rate of domestic food production so that it could target to match with the increasing demand. Every effort has to be made to increase domestic food production using wherever possible local resources and any available external aid. Sri Lanka imports large quantities of food, some of which could be easily produced locally. In 2003, 918,700 mt of wheat was imported; rice imports declined to 34,580 mt. due to high domestic production in that year, sugar imports in the same year was 509,300 mt. costing Rs. 12 billion. The estimated sugar requirement in 2012 is 1.0 million mt. valued at Rs. 20 billion. The import of other consumer items such as pulses, onions, potatoes, chillies and garlic also increased in 2003. The fruit imports, mainly oranges, apples, grapes and fruit juices cost the country Rs. 1502 million in 2003. The liberalized imports are a major disincentive to increase local production. It is not possible to continue to import food items without serious economic and political repercussions. Unlimited commitments to food imports could lead to unemployment and underemployment, which are crucial factors in any development strategy. Therefore, to overcome this situation, proper agricultural policies and food production policies have to be developed and implemented. Several urgent issues concerning the improvement of the agricultural sector should be addressed. The main issue is the availability of quality seeds and planting materials to the farmers at the required time and at reasonable cost. The quality of seeds determines their genetic composition having specific characters for increased yield and resistance to pest and diseases with desirable qualities preferred by the consumers. The rice yields are high due to the use of improved seed. In fact, the rice yield, which was around 1.5 mt/ha in 1960s, increased dramatically to 4.0 mt/ha in 2003 due to the use of improved cereal seeds as an outcome of the green revolution. Among the major rice producing countries in the Asian region, Indonesia records the highest yield of 4.47 mt/ha and Sri Lanka come second with a yield of 4.0 mt.ha. Other countries in the region produce much lower yields, India 2.83 mt/ha, Pakistan 3.30 mt/ha, Myanmar 3.67 mt/ha, Philippines 3.27 mt/ha and Thailand 2.56 mt/ha. Some of these are rice exporting countries, Thailand, Pakistan and Myanmar and the volume increase is due to the large extents grown. The potential rice yield under experimental conditions exceed to 10 mt/ha, although under field conditions yields achieved are less than half. This yield gap of more than 5-6 mt has to be raised gradually with better varieties and management packages. In rice yield improvement, supply of quality seeds will be of prime concern. However, only 14.581 mt of the certified seed paddy was produced last year was supplied to the farmers. This percentage meets only 16% of the national seed requirement. The seed paddy production has to be increased urgently to avoid farmers using their own seed, which is often of poor quality. The vegetable seed production programme of the Department of Agriculture does not produce sufficient seed to meet the total demand of the farmers. In the last year vegetable seeds produced was only 8900 kg which is highly insufficient to cover the acreages grown to these crops. To be continued |
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Produced by Lake House |
The main objective of this policy is to achieve food and nutrient
security to improve the livelihoods of marginalized people who are living
in the rural areas of the country.
