Department of Agriculture and Department of Agrarian Development are ready to Work Together for the Development of the Agricultural Sector.
Dr. Thushara Wickramarachchi, Director General of the Department of Agriculture, expressed his views yesterday (09th) in Peradeniya while informing about the programs to be implemented by the Department of Agriculture in the future.
“The two institutions come together for Sri Lankan agriculture with an integrated approach to develop the country’s agricultural sector. There are several institutions working for Sri Lanka’s agricultural industry. We have been working separately for the development of agriculture since the past. We realized that if we can come together and go on this journey, we can go a long way and do substantial work for the agricultural industry. Therefore, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agrarian Development came together and we discussed that in the future both departments should work together in the same approach, in the same manner, cooperatively. We specifically discussed matters such as the cultivation extents and production of paddy and other crops in our agricultural industry. We need these details to make policy decisions in Sri Lanka. For example, there is a Food Policy and Food Security Committee affiliated with the Presidential Secretariat. Important decisions are made for the nation by this committee while protecting both farmers and consumers. We have observed shortcomings in this data for a long time. To overcome these shortcomings and move forward, the two institutions have come together to discuss in this regard.
The other thing is that our two institutions do a lot of work for the development of the agricultural industry. We have a large number of people at the grassroots level. We have a staff of officers. In the future, we will work with the same goal and the same determination for the development of Sri Lanka’s agricultural industry. Our effort is to have both our institutions go on a journey together.”
Mr. Dhammika Ranathunga, Commissioner General of the Department of Agrarian Development, also expressed his views regarding this program.
We have initiated a very important task. We had a dialogue that how the Department of Agrarian Development and the Department of Agriculture can work together with an integrated approach for the development of the agricultural industry. Both our departments have a long history and are two departments that provide a very important contribution to the country’s development. But we have unique operations. We have distinctive functions.
“However, at the end of all these functions, we hope to develop the agricultural industry and increase farmers’ production to increase overall production. In this manner, we expect to elevate the living standards of the farming community. We gathered today to discuss how our two departments can work with an integrated approach for this task, how we can better combine our strengths through this and serve the farming community better. This is just a beginning. Both our departments are determined to continue this dialogue and serve the agricultural industry with a better approach. We discussed especially how our departments can work together to create the necessary background for making policy decisions that are important to the farming community engaged in agriculture at the grassroots level and for making decisions that need to be taken for their development, and how to integrate our development programs together.”
