Garvin Karunaratne

Agriculture luminary, Professor Buddhi Marambe has been quoted in Ceylon Today, to the effect that paddy cultivation is facing a serious situation as a consequence of the Ditwah Cyclone. The cyclone devastated 106,000 hectares from the extent cultivated in the Maha season. The chances are that it is only a small percentage of this 106,000 hectares can be re cultivated.

He also adds that the farmers will find it a yeoman task to find seed paddy for the Yala Season. Seed Paddy cannot be imported. According to Professor Marambe the loss could be estimated at around 413,000 metric tons, In Maize, he states that we will have to import 35 to 40% of our maize requirement. (Ceylon Today4/1/26)

Can we recultivate the lost area in Maha. The chances are that our farmers will be able to replant a small extent. Similar losses are reported in vegetable cultivation.

My expertise lies in organizing paddy farmers which I did for over a decade working as an assistant commissioner and senior assistant commissioner of agrarian services.

Assessing the farmer organizations of today and their working, my opinion is that the organization of paddy farming as well as other crops is at a very low level.

The organization of paddy farming came to the forefront during the three year regime of Minister Philip Gunawardena who was the Minister for Food and Agriculture from 1956. Before that paddy farming was attended to by the Department of Agriculture, that had a two year trained Agricultural Instructor at the divisional level assisted by a few one year trained overseers at the village level. In 1956 the Marketing Department that implemented the Guaranteed Price Scheme where I worked got a list of paddy farmers and owners, showing the extents cultivated in that season and we authorized the multipurpose cooperative societies to purchase paddy from the owners and cultivators based on the extents cultivated and the average yield, The cooperatives paid around double the market price to farmers for the paddy so handed over. Then the Department of Agriculture played a major role in the use of certified seed paddy and advising farmers to use fertilizer and follow improved systems of cultivation like row seeding, row weeding etc.

A major change in paddy farming came about with Minister Philip Gunawardena implementing the Paddy Lands Act of 1958. Under The Paddy Lands Act, farmers were grouped into cultivation committees, which were charged with organizing farmers to use certified seed paddy and also fertilizer. One problem was that there are three varieties of fertilizer and these have to be applied when the crop is at a particular stage.

In order to implement the Paddy Lands Act a special Department- the Agrarian Services Department was established overnight. Mr MS Perera of the Civil Service was appointed the commissioner, Instead of recruting Assistant Commissioners, officers of other Government Departments were chosen for their ability and leanings to the left and were charged with the implementation of the Paddy Lands Act. This took on the form of doing publicity to detail the provisions of the Paddy Lands Act and finally elect the cultivation committees. Divisional Officers and Field Assistants were recruited and cultivation committees were elected. I worked a year in Kegalla and was appointed to establish cultivation committees in the Anuradhapura District. This task in the Anuradhapura District was done by me and also by Sappie Peiris and TG Peris recruited from the Land Development Department. I had ten Divisional Officetrs and close upon a hundred overseers and the committees were elected from among farmers.

We did publicity explaining the Paddy Lands Act to the farmers and elected the cultivation committees. Working in Matara and Kegalla I had observed that party politics was entering in and I decided that in electing the cultivation committees there should be a consensus decision. Though the Paddy Lands Act specified that the ballot box should be used I decided that the election should be on a consensus basis. Of some 296 cultivation committees we succeeded in electing around 280 on a consensus basis without holding elections and I personally held the other elections almost forcing a consensus decision. This played great dividends when it came to action in the use of fertilizer and improved practices like row seeding and fertilizer use because the farmers worked together in cooperation. In fact I can remember that I even offered that I could get the farmers to produce all the maize that was required. This was not approved.

The elected cultivation committees did wonders in paddy production.

The working of the Paddy Lands Act received a shake up when Minister Philip Gunwsardena left the cabinet but it did not effect the working in any manner as we workers were committed to the Paddy Lands Act and effectively implemented planning to use certified seed paddy and fertilizer. In Anuradhapura where I was in charge, discussions in cultivation committees took long hours and farmers cooperated admirably.

Into this set up marched Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake. He understood that paddy cultivation had to be concentrated on and for that purpose brought in the Government Agents of the District to totally devote their time to furthering paddy cultivation.

A major change made was to divest the Government Agent of all his work. A senior administrator was appointed to each District to take over all the functions of the Government Agent so that the Government Agent could devote his full time to furthering paddy production. It was this total attention to paddy Production that enabled Sri Lanka to become self sufficient in paddy. It is important to note that there was a rice ration scheme implemented at that time that gave a measure of rice free to every person.

A major change made by Mr Senanayake was to ensure that the paddy crop was assessed by crop cuttings done on plots decided on by random sampling and each crop cutting done by staff officers of Departments other than the Department of Agriculture.,

Further in those days when no foreign exchange was given for foreign travel, the foremost farmer of each District was selected and a foreign exchange grant was given for him to travel to the sacred buddhist sites in India.

It was this massive effort that enabled Sri Lanka to become self sufficient in rice.

As the Additional Govt Agent at Kegalla I had to accompany the Hon Prime Minister in his electorate every Saturday and Sunday when he attended many meetings of farmers partly organized by his political party- the UNP and partly organized by officers of various Departments under me. The Prime Minister would attend meetings, participate in cultivation tasks that took place and I can state that we had totally allieviated poverty.

This massive effort at furthering paddy production came to be gradually stopped.

Prime Minister Sirimavo directed that the Government Agents should take charge of implementing the Divisional Development Councils Programme- to create employment through small industries and agriculture. Therefore the Government Agents departed from paddy production, which was left for the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agrarian Services to pursue.

As stated in my book Nuwarakalaviya,

the Agricultural extension system exists only in name today. The specialist department of Agriculture- the Department of Agriculture today has a trained officer only at the divisional level. President Premadasa promoted some 2400 Agricultural Overseers to the higher cadre of Grama Sevaka and since then there has been no officer trained in agriculture at the village level.”

Further the Training and Visit System of the World Bank forbid the agricultural staff from using the institutions of the people like cooperatives, thus the extension system is very ineffective today. .

I left the Service in 1973, When I visited Sri Lanka in 1980, I met the Secretary for Agriculture and he boasted about the high yields achieved. I asked for the results of the crop cuttings that found the high results. He told me that they had given up the practice of holding crop cutting surveys as it was too costly.

Thus agricultural extension is fairly non existent at the village level today. The officer of the Agricultural Department, the Agricultural Instructor. works at the divisional level and a division has around 3000 to 14,000 farmers and it is difficult for a single official to attend to the requirements of so vast a number.

The conclusion of my book : Nuwarakalaviya(Godages:2020) is appropriate: Whet we are seeing today is the total destruction of orderly cultivation that existed when the Government Agents and later the Agrarian Services handled development…. The agricultural extension service which was in top form in the Sixties and Seventies is non existent”.

Garvin Karunaratne