{"id":112462,"date":"2021-03-08T16:40:57","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T23:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112462"},"modified":"2021-03-08T16:40:57","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T23:40:57","slug":"the-general-election-of-1956-part-4e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/03\/08\/the-general-election-of-1956-part-4e\/","title":{"rendered":"THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1956 Part 4E"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

One of Philip\u2019s great success stories was potato farming in Nuwara Eliya.\nThis had been tried before and failed. \nThe MEP government wrote off the debt on this failed attempt and tried\nagain with better seed potatoes. The trial was a complete success, and a potato\nresearch station was established in Rahangala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n1957 Philip reported that sugar cane production was begun on a large scale in\nKantalai. This was the first time that lift irrigation on a large scale was\nbeing used in Sri Lanka. \nIn 1958 Philip reported that the sugar factory was also coming up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip also started pineapple, coffee, cocoa, tobacco and cotton\nplantations. Pineapple was tried in Gampaha area, where the soil is suitable. Cocoa in Matale,\nBadulla and Koslanda, tobacco in Jaffna and Uva. Philip said that a citrus specialist from\nAustralia had been surprised that we were not using the local varieties which\nwill be more resistant to disease, unlike\nthe imported varieties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nlarge cotton farm was planned for Hambantota, in the area between Walawe and\nKirindi oya, said Philip. We have developed a variety of cotton suitable for\nthe area.  It is purchased at a good\nprice by Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills. Area under cotton was expanding\nas the villagers earned more by cultivating cotton. We propose to open a fairly\nlarge cotton farm in Ridiyagama area with Russian assistance, continued Philip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

G.T.Dharmasena recalled that in 1956, Lakshman Rajapaksa, MP for\nHambantota and Deputy Minister for Commerce and Trade had in 1956 set up a\ncotton processing factory at Mirijjawila near Hambantota to encourage cotton\ncultivators in Hambantota and Monaragala. Cotton was a popular crop in\nHambantota and Monaragala. Cotton was cultivated under rain-fed conditions.\nThis factory functioned satisfactorily and it started processing their home\ngrown cotton. It was set on fire by the JVP in 1971. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In dairy farming, Philip reported that they had experimented with\ncrossing the Sinhala Cow with the Jersey and Frisian cows. The most\nsuccessful match was with Jersey. The animal is larger than the Sinahla cow but\nnot as large as Jersey. Milk yield was fairly satisfactory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip\nimproved the distribution of milk. Most of the milk went waste since the\nproducing areas were so far from the towns and in a tropical climate milk soon\ngoes bad. Therefore Philip set up two pasteurization plants in Gampola and\nNattandiya where 10,000 pints of milk were collected daily, from producers.\nMilk Board planned to set up two more plants at Polgahawela and Kotagala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nMilk Board in 1958 launched a programme to popularize milk drinking, and to\nincrease the supply to those areas which were ready to drink milk. The Board\nplanned a chain of six feeder units for collection, processing and storage at\nNattandiya, Gampola and Welikanda, with Kotagala, Polgahawela and Galle to\nfollow. The Board also up the Colombo\nCentral Dairy with Colombo Plan aid, to serve the Greater Colombo district. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\nAmerican NGO, CARE, had been invited by the UNP government to distribute milk\npowder. CARE was an acronym for Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere\u2019. Philip objected to CARE distributing milk\npowder. It could be done by local agencies. Also\nwhat was the need for CARE to set up an office here, for the mere supervision\nof the distribution. Why  did the\nprevious government allow a voluntary \norganization to set up a branch office in Ceylon. Philip was suspicious.\n\u2018I fear the Greeks  even when they offer\ngifts \u2018 Philip  tried to change the\nagreement ,but  found that was not\npossible. \u2018I looked,\u2019  he said. \u2018( Continued)\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS One of Philip\u2019s great success stories was potato farming in Nuwara Eliya. This had been tried before and failed.  The MEP government wrote off the debt on this failed attempt and tried again with better seed potatoes. The trial was a complete success, and a potato research station was established in Rahangala. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}