President advises field officials to provide pragmatic solutions to farmers to boost agriculture sec

President Maithripala Sirisena said it was the relevant field officers who can practically implement the Government’s policies among the people and get successful results to build a prosperous country by enhancing the agriculture.

Speaking at an event held on Wednesday at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo to initiate a program to prepare the agriculture sector for the impending drought, the President said practically viable solutions should be provided to farmers and cultivators to yield better results in the agriculture sector.

The event was organised by the Ministry of Agriculture and attended by the officials of the institutes under the Ministry.

The program also focused on the theme of ‘Let’s get together and achieve sustainable development goals - Let’s free the country from poverty in 2017’. They also paid attention on enlightening the people of the Government’s economic plan towards making a powerful country.

“The Government’s objective is to solve the problems of the people in the country. Everybody should get together to win that challenge,” the President said.

He added that there should be new plans to minimise the difficulties faced by the people due to the draught. “We should use the drought as strength for the development,” he said.

The President symbolically presented compensation for the farmers who did not have any insurance to cover the loss of the harvest due to the natural disasters in the Maha Season harvest in 2016.

He presented computers to the Divisional Agrarian Development Officers and opened the information data system which connects 521 agrarian service centres.

Agriculture Minister Duminda Dissanayake, State Minister Vasantha Aluvihare and Deputy Speaker Thilanga Sumathipala were among those who participated in this occasion.