President says Govt. committed to resolve issues of farmers and agricultural sector

It is vital to create a good market and reasonable price for farmers’ produce in the process of enriching Sri Lanka as an agricultural country and strengthening the economy of the farmers, President Maithripala Sirisena said.

The President also said the immediate attention should be drawn to the problems faced by the farmers, when selling their produce, due to the large numbers of intermediaries.

He made these remarks joining the National Agribusiness Development Program held at the Budhi Mandapaya Hall in Polonnaruwa, last week.

This program is being implemented as a special project of the President’s Office and the foremost objective of this program is to direct the rural agricultural community towards the sustainable income generation sources as well as to socialise them as agricultural entrepreneurs. Through these initiatives it is expected to strengthen their economy and boost their livelihood.

Speaking further, the President said that in some situations, the decisions the Government has taken for the elevation of the agricultural industry will be admired and in some situations it is not appreciated and it cannot be avoided.

The President pointed out even though many projects were implemented with this commercialised society, the foundation of our country’s economy is agricultural. He added that the country’s present and future is also relying on the field of agriculture.

Due to outdated theories about the agricultural market, the quality and price a number of issues have arisen and if we want to take the country towards the development it is necessary to implement joint actions by the state sector, the private sector and the public, the President said.

President Sirisena further said that our agricultural sector should be strengthened to provide the required quantity through qualitative products to the local market, while the surplus exporting to the foreign markets to meet our import export gap .

Contributing to decide the prices of products while making the coordination between agricultural producers and marketing companies are done under the National Agribusiness Development Program.

Through these initiatives, stable price will receive for the products of the agrarians and according to that they can directly contact the actual buyer. Permanent and reliable sales partners will meet to sell their agricultural products under this initiative.

With this the agricultural products manufacturer, will meet permanent and reliable sales partners to sell their products without the intervention of other intermediaries.

Agricultural producers need technical knowledge, soft loans, and agricultural equipment, and the benefits of this project would be to provide agricultural products and undertake loan interest relief. There will be coordination between the farmer and the Institute of Marketing and Public Affairs under the project.

Under this project, required technical knowledge will be provided to the agricultural producers as well as granting concessionary loans and providing agricultural equipment also done under this project.

The President symbolically presented agricultural equipment to 20 farmers representing 10,660 farmers who are networked with private sector partners of the National Agribusiness Development Program.

New partner agreements with private agribusiness companies of the National Agribusiness Development Program and the proposal regarding the organic maize cultivation were also presented to the President.

The President presented title certificates to 18 beneficiaries representing 3232 beneficiaries who have registered to obtain financial facilities with the partnering commercial banks of the National Agribusiness Development Programme.

The Governor of Eastern Province, Austin Fernando, Minister of Rural Economy, P. Harrison, Sydney Jayarathna, MP, Program Manager at National Agribusiness Development Program, Yasantha Mapatuna and many others participated in the meeting.