The Hon. K.D. Lal Kantha - Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation

¶ 01 Hon. Chairman, after adding Mahaweli to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, it is clear to Parliament and the country that this is a large Ministry with a vast mandate. I thank our Hon. President and Minister of Finance for rationalizing many scattered institutions under one Ministry so that all functions needed to serve agriculture and livestock are brought together scientifically.

¶ 02 I also thank our farming community who, despite hardships, feed our nation. There are shortcomings in the Department of Agriculture; people, farmers and officials report them daily. Some malpractices and inefficiencies are reported; we must correct them. Yet, the Department and its officials have delivered immense service to agriculture. We acknowledge past leaders like Dudley Senanayake and others who contributed. While some recent politicians damaged the sector—as even Hon. Nalin Bandara concedes—my duty is not to apportion blame but to ensure food production and food security now.

¶ 03 We must also recognize our livestock sector teams. There are many vacancies—especially veterinary surgeons—and staff are over-stretched. The recent African Swine Fever devastated the pig industry; we are rebuilding from scratch. We seek to fill critical vacancies swiftly.

¶ 04 Irrigation and land have significantly contributed to agricultural progress, though with many challenges. When we assumed office late last year, the first major issue was rice. There was a severe scarcity. Our Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development, Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe, intervened effectively. Though it is regrettable that we had to import rice, we will import when necessary to ensure food security, while focusing our efforts on maximizing domestic production. With reservoirs now filled, we are advancing the coming Yala season earlier to capitalize on water availability.

¶ 05 We appreciate our officials’ dedication despite past political interference and inefficiencies. I place my appreciation up front.

¶ 06 For a long time, farmers, led notably by my colleague Namal Karunaratne, have insisted that without a price above cost of production, farmers abandon cultivation. From day one we planned accordingly. First and foremost, the cultivator must profit. Discussing consumer price before farm-gate paddy price is putting the cart before the horse. For the 2024–2025 Maha, there have been no cries of loss from paddy farmers. We set the Paddy Marketing Board purchase price at cost plus 30%, not as a rigid “guaranteed price,” allowing upward flexibility. Paddy farmers succeeded this Maha; we used strategies that I will not detail here but will continue to deploy.

¶ 07 Potato farmers too obtained fair prices. I thank our officials, stakeholders, and my Deputy Ministers for their support.

¶ 08 On statistics: we accept there are issues, but until a better system is established, we must work with the available data, which are approximately correct. Some asked: if production is sufficient, why shortages? We derived a new working rule from discussions: when we aim for surplus, we achieve sufficiency; when we aim merely for sufficiency, we get shortfalls. Some worry paddy goes into other products. If paddy is used for more by-products, value addition is good. Biscuits, cakes—even alcoholic beverages—can use rice. I consider alcohol also a kind of “food” for some; let professionals disagree. The more by-products, the better. There are laws regulating this; we will manage within that framework.

¶ 09 Some asked for sorghum land to brew beer. When the rice shortage emerged, political criticism would have followed had we allocated land for sorghum then, so we postponed. We will consider such proposals appropriately. There are also requests for 200–300 acres for durian for export. Due to past misuse and fraud in land alienation, we are now cautious and verifying before allocating land.

¶ 10 Regarding the wildlife census raised by Hon. Nalin Bandara: no one has done this before. It will not be perfect the first time. We must conduct repeated surveys. We brought it under Agriculture because the issue directly affects farmers, though Sri Lanka lacks a coherent wildlife management framework—shamefully so after 76 years. You cannot manage wildlife without even a relative estimate of populations. No one truly knows the numbers now. We will start, learn from errors, and improve.

¶ 11 My officials drafted a conventional Budget speech, but I chose to speak directly. We recognize that most farmers are still in subsistence agriculture; only a few have moved beyond. We need to link private sector capital and enterprise with farmers and their lands through programmes that integrate smallholders with private value chains.

¶ 12 We also have minimal use of modern technology and mechanization; many farm tiny plots.