Available agricultural expertise not passed down to farmers

“Let’s read DS again”

Only 1.7 percent of paddy farmers here have received any kind of professional training in agriculture despite the Agriculture Ministry having the highest number of PhDs in agriculture related subjects and an extensive network of agrarian officials countrywide, it was revealed at a conference on Thursday.

Guest Speaker at the conference, consultant paediatrician and researcher on political history, Dr Ajith Amarasinghe, said that majority of our farmers have had less than a month’s training.

Quoting numbers from an Agricultural Household Survey conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics, Amarasinghe focused on this lacuna pointing out that despite available expertise, scientific knowledge has not been transferred to farmers on the ground.

“The Agriculture Ministry has the highest number of field officers. They do possess classical knowledge on agriculture but have had no training on how to transfer practical knowledge to the farmers in the field,” he told the meeting organized by the School of Democracy, an independent academy to promote political literacy and young political leadership.

The event titled “Let’s read DS again” conducted via zoom was attended by UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Amarasinghe said the country’s education system was not geared to help its main industries and agriculture. “Our first Prime Minister, DS Senanayake commenced promoting growing our own food in a country that had focused on cash crops – tea, rubber and coconut. He worked on tank restoration and land settlement because he knew that the country’s population would double from four million to eight million in 30 years from the 1920s and 1930s.

“He foresaw a food shortage with population growth. He found people had lost their lands to cash crop cultivation in the Wayamba, Central and Western provinces and settled them in the North and East dry zone less populated than the rest of the country. He spearheaded an agricultural revolution and wanted very much to promote agricultural education.”

“DS in the Legislative Assembly in 1925 pointed out that we had a defective education system with no promotion of agricultural, industrial and technical education. He campaigned for the setting up of the Peradeniya University with an Agriculture Faculty pointing out that objectives of teaching that subject could not be achieved by having Colombo-based universities.

“Successive leaders after him could not continue his vision and mission maybe for political reasons. The end result is that parents try to make their children doctors, lawyers and engineers. Only a minuscule number of students could reach these professions while over 95 percent end their education only with literacy skills,” Dr Amarasinghe said.