The Hon. Sudath Balagalla
Hon. Sudath Balagalla supported the motion while urging a scientific and practical approach to managing wildlife–livestock interactions, noting that cattle grazing in areas such as Maduru Oya can reduce elephant fodder and increase village incursions. He said State livestock farms, including Girandurukotte, should be revitalized through investment, expanded herds, processing facilities, smallholder sheds, and fodder plots. He also stated that MILCO had been returned to profitability within several months and called for implementation without political point-scoring.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Mr. Deputy Speaker, this is a good motion. But we must be realistic about wildlife–livestock interactions. In places like Maduru Oya, when cattle consume grass needed by elephants, elephant incursions into villages increase—a scientifically observed link. We must manage grazing scientifically, not simply push all cattle out or in.
¶ 02 State livestock farms: for example, Girandurukotte farm has around 1,050 acres; there were only about 150 milch cows—about nine acres per animal. We plan to revitalize these farms, invite investors, rebuild processing plants, and expand herds to 200–300 cows, with sheds provided to surrounding smallholders and fodder plots allotted. Let’s proceed with solid, scientific plans and avoid political point-scoring. MILCO, which had losses for months, has been turned around to profitability in 7–8 months.
¶ 03 Support the motion with practical implementation.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 11 July 2025 ·No. 1753082553092748 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/21185
Cite as: The Hon. Sudath Balagalla. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 11 July 2025. No. 1753082553092748. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/21185