Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, Mr. K.D. Lal Kantha, participated in the distribution of “Himikama” land title deeds.
The Monaragala District programme of the national programme to issue ten thousand land title deeds was held yesterday (15th) at the main hall of Nissanka National School, Monaragala. On this occasion, around 1,400 land title deeds were distributed.
Carrying this programme forward successfully and providing solutions to people’s land problems is another objective of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation.
The Deputy Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development, Mr. R.M. Jayawardena and the Monaragala District Member of Parliament, Mr. Ajith Agalakada, along with the political authority as well as a number of government officers, participated in the event.
The Minister who attended the event presented his views as follows.
“People in Sri Lanka don’t feel whether there is a war in the world or not. The government has done a great deal of management so that the war is not felt. Fertilizer prices have risen enormously because of the war. But the government is providing fertilizer to farmers with a subsidy. Oil prices have gone up across the whole Asian region. Sri Lanka’s fuel prices are lower than those of the other countries in this region.
We have currently planned the activities to start the Kumbukkan Oya irrigation project. Two weeks ago, the Kuda Oya reservoir was handed over to the public.
We are a country that is completely self-sufficient in rice. But we import three types of rice from abroad: basmati, jasmine and sticky rice. Food security is a responsibility of our Ministry. The other is uplifting the economy of the farming community.
Now, think about this. If we are self-sufficient in rice, should we go for paddy cultivation on new lands? There is no need to allocate new lands under paddy. We should make other products from rice. At present, we import many additional crops from abroad. After we came to power, we increased the fertilizer subsidy. We also gave a fertilizer subsidy for additional crops. From the next season, the same fertilizer subsidy given for paddy will also be given for the additional crops. In the future, we will try to provide fertilizer completely free of charge.”
