by Garvin Karunaratne

When we became independent in 1948, we- the colonies were the market for everything produced in the UK.

With independence, we had to change to enable development, production in industry and agriculture and foremost to alleviate poverty.

We had commenced Land Development, Irrigation, and Agriculture. To enable people to be trained, we started a major Department- Rural Development and Cottage Industry. Rural Development Officers were everywhere. They organized development at grass grassroots level, Handlooms took the stage. A major Department of Small Industry handled cooperatives to weave and sell. Laksala emerged to handle sales. By 1970, with handlooms, powerlooms and a few textile factories, we produced all our textlies. .

In 1955 I started work as Assistant Commissioner in the Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing. It was buying vegetables and fruit at Producer Fairs there by ensuring that the producers got a fair price, moving the produce to the Cities and selling at low prices keeping a mark. up of fifteen percent to cover up transport costs and wastage aimed at making traders sell at low rates. A Cannery was established in 1955. We handled far less than 10% of the produce but were successful in ensuring that the producers got a fair price and also ensured that the traders in the Cities had to sell at low rates. It was a unique system not found anywhere else. In three years- by 1958 we produced all our requirements of jam and juice. Even 8% of our pineapple pieces were exported.

Then came the Paddy Lands Act of Comrade Philip Gunawardena. I did muster the farmers into cultivation committees in Matara, Kegalla and Anuradhapura. . Plans were drawn up for the farmers to plan their cultivation, proper seed paddy was found from  seed farms belonging to the Government , fertilizer obtained through multi purpose cooperatives, fed through fertilizer stores of the Government . H4 a high yielding variety of paddy was found by 1954, well before the IRRI (International Rice Research Institute)came into existence. This planning and organization was done by two Departments the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agrarian Services. I worked in Agrarian Services as an Assistant Commissioner and our Department had a Field Assistant, a one year trained at the viillage level. The Agriculture Department also had an year trained Overseer. This combination of two Departments did wonders. Comrade Philip left us but he had set up the organization for us workers to get going.

In 1965 the Prime Minister Mr Dudley Senanayake decided to direct the paddy production programme personally.

In every District the most senior officer -the Government Agent was instructed to devote his entire time for paddy production. For this purpose the Government Agent was instructed to hand over all his work to an Additional Government Agent and the Government Agent was also gazetted as a Deputy Commissioner of Agrarian Services, Cooperatives and Agriculture. There was meticulous planning and implementation. The harvest was good and Sri Lanka became self sufficient in paddy.

The Prime Minister wanted to be certain of the achievement. Hitherto it was the Department of of Agriculture that did the crop cuttings to arrive at the yield. The Prime Minister was not satisfied. He wanted crop cuttings done on plots found on random sampling and further he wanted the crop cuttings done by staff officers of other Departments, Though costly, This was done to arrive at the actual yield,

Ten years later, when I met the Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, he boasted of the paddy produced and then I asked for the crop cuttings survey results He said that they had found it an expensive process and stopped it. The yields reported by the Department of Agriculture had been accepted as final.

Today decades later we lament of low yields

What did happen.

With the abolition of the Paddy Lands Act in the Eighties, The cultivation committees ceased to exist, The Agrarian Services Department was curtailed in action,.Its cadre of Field Assistants was abolished. Today we have Agrarian Services Centers that sell fertilizers They no longer organize cultivation.

Further, President Premadasa promoted all Agricultural Overseers, some 2300 to the rank of Grama Niladhari and the post of agricultural overseer was abolished. With this move there is no field officer at the grass route level. This has eaten into the ability of the Department of Agriculture as it has no officer at the village level. In fact the Department of Agriculture ceases to exist after the Divisional Level. This Divisional Agricultural Instructor has to attend to the requirements of as much as 13,000 farmers at Yodakandiya and 3500 farmers at Ranorawa. Without a Field Assistant- an Overseer under him the work of the Department of Agriculture is very ineffective. In other words the Department of Agriculture the only Department in charge of agriculture is inactivated.

In addition comes the decision of the IMF that the officers of the Department of Agriculture should not use any peoples organizations like cooperatives in extension. In our Developing countries many are the farmers cultivating small parcels and thus the efficacy of the Department of Agriculture is highly curtailed- in fact it may be correct to conclude that the Department of Agriculture almost ceases to exist.

Luckily MotherNature has provided water through rain at particular times very regularly, which helps cultivation.. The major part of the acreage under paddy cultivation is cultivated rain fed. Mother Nature has provided rain on a very regular pattern and it is necessary to plan cultivation but as stated earlier, in the absence of any organization, there is late cultivation and a portion the crop ends invariably damaged.

In the dry zone our forefathers had developed an intricate system of small tanks to ensure that there is a continued water supply after rains cease. . There are no cultivation committees now to organize the people together to ensure that people cultivate together and this too impedes orderly cultivation. The Yaya Palakas are very ineffective. Cultivators are left to themselves. Paddy cultivation requires cooperation as water flows from field to field and

there is no organization to bring the cultivators together.

Mother Nature has not deserted us humans. The failure is in our hands-

Thus today we have to start from scratch to cultivate the maximum area and also ensure that improved seed and improved techniques are used.

Thus as far as paddy cultivation is concerned, a peoples organization to plan the cultivation is essential and this is a fundamental necessity that has to be addressed.

Then comes marketing the produce. In the Fifties and Sixties SriLanka had a Guaranteed Price scheme for all major food items that were imported. The people could plant any crop in demand and hand over the produce to their own cooperative and get paid. There was a Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing which implemented the Guaranteed Price Scheme and the cooperative would hand over to the Marketing Department and get paid.

The Marketing Department established a Cannery in 1955. This Cannery, offered good prices for many items and processed them to market. Red Pumpkin was turned into Golden Mellow Jam and Ash Pumpkin into Silver Mellow Jam. Within the three years 1955 to 1958 we produced all the jam we required and even sold 8% of our pineapple tins abroad. . All over Sri Lanka there were Public Fairs where anyone could bring in produce and get sold. The Marketing Department also purchased goods at their stores and also at the Fairs. As Assistant Commissioner for Development of Marketing I surveyed what happened at the Fairs and if I found the traders fleecing the producers with low prices I would get the Marketing Department to start purchases to make the traders offer reasonable prices. With the abolition of the Marketing Department this situation does not exist today.

The IMF with one stroke of the pen- its Structural Adjustment Programme insisted that if Sri Lanka is to be provided with finance it has to abolish the Marketing Department and all its activities on he premise that the Government did not deal with any commerce. The Cannery that made Sri Lanka self sufficient in many fruit produce was privatized.

Today we boast of Economic Centers. These are only shop premises offered to traders.

Thus today many current programmes are defective and new programmes have to be initiated, This task falls very squarely on the shoulders of our new saviour President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the NPP. We do wish him well to take our country to a situ where poverty is alleviated.

Perhaps these rambling thoughts of mine could somehow usher in development initiatives.

Garvin Karunaratne

Former GA Matara 1971-1973

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