Pushing paddy production

Monday, 30 April 2012 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

A discussion on increasing paddy production by another 10% while cutting down on related production costs as proposed in the Budget 2012 was held this week presided over by Secretary to the Treasury Dr. P.B. Jayasundera.

District secretaries/additional district secretaries of Kilinochchi, Puttalam, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Ampara, Vavuniya, Trincomalee and Hambantota, Ministry of Agriculture Secretary and its senior officials and the officials representing State banks, Departments of Census and Statistic, Sri Lanka Customs and the Treasury attended the discussion.

Although the domestic paddy production has exceeded the country’s requirement, there is a need to increase production targeting the export market. The District Secretary of Kilinochchi was instructed to make future plans to have a mechanism to increase the paddy production in the district to be sold in the international market.

It was pointed out that the issues related to the quality of seeds, the difficulty of obtaining seeds when required and not using modern techniques in nurseries and in germination of plants result in low paddy production and in turn it affect production costs.

The Ministry and the Department of Agriculture has to play a vital role in this endeavour and the necessity of taking proactive actions was emphasised. All the departments that attended the discussion agreed to extend the fullest cooperation to the Ministry of Agriculture in every possible way in order to achieve the objectives.