By Sanath Nanayakkare

Major logistics companies should step forward to transport and distribute the national agri food produce in a commercially viable manner to ensure that all parts of the country receive fresh produce in an equitable manner, Aruna Weerakoon, Chairman/Managing Director, Agro Culture Trends (Pvt) Ltd said addressing a press conference in Battaramulla recently.

Meanwhile, Waruna Madawanar-achchi, Managing Director, CIC Agri Businesses said although at times it is claimed that there was an excessive output of pumpkin which couldn’t be sold, he personally knew that half the country didn’t receive pumpkin because nobody came forward to transport it because it is a heavy commodity.

They made these remarks and a wide range of comments following the Annual General Meeting (AGM) 2023 of the Seed and Planting Materials Association (SAPMA).

“The urgent need to boost agricultural productivity and national food production for ensuring long term food security of the nation cannot be overemphasized. It is a well-known fact that a significant percentage of the population in the country is still incapable of meeting the required level of nutritious food to maintain their good health,” they said.

Responding to questions from the media on the private sector’s contribution to the national food production they said it was a useful question because certain sections of the media and vested interests keep criticizing them without actually knowing the true facts and data about the service they render to the agriculture sector.

“Today the private sector is accountable for total seed imports. We supply more than 75% of seed paddy, more than 80% of vegetable seed, almost 100% supply of maize seed, more than 50 percent of potato seed and 90% supply of planting material, they said.

“Seed is a vital input used in agricultural production and the increased usage of high-quality seed of superior crop varieties can be considered as the most effective and pragmatic way of enhancing crop productivity. This phenomenon is successfully practiced in many countries in the world. This vital input most often costs less than 10 percent of the total production cost and determines the efficient use of costly inputs like fertilizers. Seed supply, which includes both local production and imports, had been a government domain until the 1980s. During this period, seed shortages were frequently observed in the country during the peak harvesting seasons inconveniencing farmers and affecting food production. Due to heavy financial losses and supply disruptions the government decided to liberalize seed imports in 1984 with a view to getting the private sector involvement in the trade and this was followed by making a major policy shift in 1990’s to privatize the seed industry by offering many incentives to encourage private sector. With the state support and guidance, a couple of private seed enterprises have developed over the years and today the seed supply in the country has become a multi-institutional function involving public, private, and cooperative sectors relieving the heavy burden on the state coffers,” they said.

Responding to questions on the challenges of expanding the national seed supply, they said,” The inability to periodically upgrade technical knowledge of industry stakeholders, inadequate resources to expedite the development of high performing new crop varieties, attitudes of stakeholders and inability to develop public-private partnerships, ad-hoc regulatory changes, non-availability of accurate industry information to make management decisions and building public-private partnerships to make use of underutilized state infrastructure are the key challenges.”

Proposing the way forward for the sector, they listed out the following. A long-term policy to assure an uninterrupted supply of quality seed to farmers, a consistent policy to promote both local production and imports, avoiding ad-hoc regulations that create seed supply distortions, protecting both consumers (farmers) and genuine suppliers/producers, expediting the current variety registration process of the government, revisiting regulations that are prohibitive to industry development, enactment of breeder’s rights act to promote private sector plant breeding and programs to enhance farmer income by improving their productivity with the use of correct technologies including the increased use of quality seed.

Referring to PPP they said,” There are several limitations where each sector could contribute separately. The success of any National Seed Program depends on how best these two sectors could complement one another in delivering the final goal of increasing the availability and the usage of quality seed by farmers in the country.