Agriculture in Srilanka
Agriculture - including forestry and fishing - accounted for over 46
percent of exports, over 40 percent of the labor force, and around 28
percent of the GNP in 1986. The dominant crops were paddy, tea, rubber,
and coconut. In the late 1980s, the government-sponsored Accelerated
Mahaweli Program irrigation project opened a large amount of new land
for paddy cultivation in the dry zone of the eastern part of the island.
In contrast, the amount of land devoted to tea, coconut, and rubber
remained stable in the forty years after independence. Land reforms
implemented in the 1970s affected mainly these three crops. Little land
was distributed to small farmers; instead it was assumed by various
government agencies. As a result, most tea and a substantial proportion
of rubber production was placed under direct state control.
Changing Patterns
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, agriculture has been
dominated by the four principal crops: rice, tea, rubber, and coconut.
Most tea and rubber were exported, whereas almost all rice was for
internal use. The coconut crop was sold on both domestic and
international markets. The importance of other crops increased in the
1970s and 1980s, but no single crop emerged to challenge the four
traditional mainstays.
Tea, rubber, and to a lesser extent, coconut are grown on plantations
established in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Before the
plantations existed, villagers carried out three main types of
cultivation. The valley bottoms and lowlands were occupied by rice
paddies. These paddies were surrounded by a belt of residential gardens
permanently cultivated with fruit trees and vegetables. The gardens in
turn were surrounded by forests, parts of which were temporarily cleared
for slash-and- burn cultivation, known as
chena. Various grains
and vegetables were grown on
chena lands. The forests were also
used for hunting, grazing for village cattle, gathering wild fruit, and
timber. In some villages, especially in the dry zone, there was little
rice cultivation, and people depended on the gardens and forests for
their livelihood.
Under legislation passed in 1840, the title of most forestland was
vested in the government. In order to stimulate the production of export
crops, the colonial administration sold large tracts to persons who
wished to develop plantations. At first most buyers were British, but by
the end of the nineteenth century many middle-class Sri Lankans had also
acquired crown land and converted it to plantation use. The early coffee
and tea plantations were often situated at high elevations, some
distance from the nearest Sinhalese villages, but as time went on more
estates were developed on land contiguous to villages. The precise
impact of the plantations on village society remains controversial, but
it is widely believed in Sri Lanka that the standard of living of
villagers suffered as they lost use of the forestland.
Although the large coffee, tea, and rubber plantations relied mainly
on Tamil migrants from southern India for their permanent labor supply,
Sinhalese villagers were employed in the initial clearing of the
forests, and some performed casual daily labor on the plantations in
seasons when there was little work in the villages. The coconut
plantations, being spatially closer to villages, employed considerable
Sinhalese labor.
By the early twentieth century, there was no longer much land
suitable for the expansion of cultivation in the wet zone, and in the
1930s the focus of agricultural development shifted from the wet zone to
the dry zone and from plantation crops to rice. There was ample
uncultivated land in the dry zone of the north-central region, but three
major obstacles had to be overcome--the prevalence of malaria, the lack
of a reliable supply of water to carry out rice cultivation, and the
absence of farmers to cultivate the soil. The first of these problems
was solved by the success of the antimalarial campaigns of the 1940s.
The others were tackled by government policies that sought to restore
and build irrigation works and resettle peasants from the wet zone in
the newly irrigated areas. In the 1980s, the pace of this program was
quickened by the Accelerated Mahaweli Program.
The most important change in agriculture in the forty years after
independence was the increase in rice production. This increase resulted
from better yields and the enlarged amount of land under cultivation. In
contrast, with the exception of rubber in the 1950s and 1960s, the
principal export crops showed only modest gains in productivity, and the
amount of land devoted to tea and rubber fell. After around 1970, there
was growth in the production of other crops, including onions, chilies,
sugar, soybeans, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, cloves, and nutmeg.
Fishing, a traditional industry in coastal waters, accounted for 2.1
percent of GNP in 1986. Government efforts to offer incentives for
modernization had little impact. The civil disturbances of the 1980s
badly affected the industry. Before 1983 the northern region produced
nearly 25 percent of the fish catch and around 55 percent of cured fish,
but in the mid-1980s fishing was not possible there for long periods.
The value of the fish catch off the northern coast fell from Rs495
million in 1981 to Rs52 million in 1986. Production off the southern and
western coasts and from inland fisheries grew during this period, but
not enough to prevent a decline in the island's total catch. In 1987 the
government announced plans to provide funds for investment in fishing in
the North and East, but implementation was likely to depend on improved
security in these areas.
Land Use
Although there have been periodic agricultural censuses, they were
limited in purpose and did not provide an overall picture of land use.
In 1961, however, a survey of the use of the island's physical resources
was compiled based on a 1956 aerial photographic survey of the entire
country. The survey indicated that, of the country's total area of
nearly 66 million hectares, 29 percent was under permanent cultivation,
just over 15 percent under
chena cultivation, 44 percent under
forest cover, and about 6 percent under various types of grasses. Nearly
33,000 hectares consisted of swamp and marshlands, and about 63,000
hectares, or 1 percent, unused land. Just over 3 percent of the island's
surface was covered by water. Of the total area, approximately 23
percent was in the wet zone, about 63 percent in the dry zone, and the
balance lay in an area that the survey labeled "intermediate,"
as it had characteristics of both zones.
Of the land under permanent cultivation in 1961, which included
cropland, land under plantation, and homestead gardens, the survey
indicated that some 75 percent was in the wet and intermediate zones and
about 25 percent was in the dry zone.
Chena cultivation, on the
other hand, was predominantly in the dry zone, as were the grass, scrub,
and forestlands. Although forest covered almost half the country, only
about 0.2 percent and 3.1 percent of the forests were characterized as
of high and intermediate yield, respectively. The study further
indicated that approximately 70 percent of the land in the wet zone was
under permanent cultivation, whereas in the dry zone under 12 percent
was being cultivated on a permanent basis.
Since 1961 irrigation has enabled a much greater proportion of land
in the dry zone to be cultivated and in 1978 it was estimated that
nearly one-third of the country's dry-zone area was under permanent
cultivation. This proportion increased in the 1980s, when lands
irrigated by the Accelerated Mahaweli Program were added to the total.
As a result, the proportion of forestland declined and was estimated at
just under 40 percent in 1987.
Although the forests had few high-yield timber stands, many areas
suffered from deforestation because of the heavy demand for firewood in
the 1980s. In 1987 it was estimated that 94 percent of households used
firewood for cooking. Scarcities of firewood led to price increases well
above the general level of inflation in the 1980s.
Government Policies
Government support for farmers takes several forms, including the
provision of credit for producers, the setting of minimum prices for
agricultural produce, the building of irrigation works, and the
encouragement of internal migration to newly irrigated areas. Since the
late colonial period, the government has played a growing role in the
provision of credit to smallholders on favorable terms. Until 1986 the
main instrument of this policy was the subvention of cooperative
societies. Agricultural credit took three forms: short-term loans to
farmers for the purchase of seeds and fertilizers; medium-term loans,
intended for the purchase of machinery; and long-term loans for capital
expenditure on storage, transport, and rice-milling apparatus. The
long-term loans were not available for individual farmers, but were used
by the cooperative societies to acquire infrastructural facilities.
The actual performance of credit provision through cooperatives
generally fell short of expectations. Institutional credit did not
displace the older sources of credit, such as the village moneylender,
friends, and relatives. The inability to repay loans, procedural
difficulties, and the existence of unpaid loans already taken from the
cooperatives were some reasons given by farmers for preferring
noninstitutional credit sources. Another problem with the credit
furnished by cooperatives was the high rate of default. This rate may
have been attributable partly to real difficulties in repayment, but it
also was the result of a widely held impression that government loans
were a form of social welfare and that it was not necessary to repay
them.
The New Comprehensive Rural Credit Scheme implemented in 1986 sought
to increase the flow of credit to smallholders. The Central Bank
guaranteed up to 50 percent of each loan in the event of losses incurred
by banks lending under the program, and eligible farmers received a line
of credit for three years. Loans were automatically rescheduled at
concessional rates when crops were damaged by events beyond the farmer's
control. In 1986 cultivation loans under this program amounted to nearly
Rs257 million, about 74 percent for paddy and the rest for other food
crops.
Another important policy was the Guaranteed Price Scheme, which came
into effect in 1942. Under this program the government agreed to
purchase rice and some other produce at set prices. The intention was to
support the farmer's standard of living. For a period in the early
1970s, when the island was threatened by food shortages, the government
ordered peasants to market all of their rice through this scheme and at
times set the price at a level lower than that of the free market. This
policy had the effect of reducing the incentive to grow rice. The
program lost some of its impetus in the 1980s. In 1986 the government
set the price below the free-market rate for most of the year. As a
result of the policy, purchases under the program accounted for only
about 6 percent of the rice crop, mostly from districts where private
traders were unwilling to operate because of the poor security
situation.
Since the 1930s, governments have promoted irrigation works and
colonization projects in the dry zone in an attempt to increase rice
production and reduce land pressure and unemployment in the more densely
settled wet zone. The lack of infrastructure and the prevalence of
malaria hampered these programs in the early years. After the near
eradication of malaria, increased government investment in
infrastructure and enhanced financial support for migrants made the new
lands more desirable. Between 1946 and 1971, the proportion of the
population living in the dry zone increased from 12 to 19 percent.
At the end of 1968, about 352,000 hectares were under irrigation for
rice cultivation; some 178,000 hectares under major storage reservoirs
and barrages, and approximately 174,000 hectares in minor irrigation
projects. In the 1970s and 1980s, governments pursued major irrigation
programs, most notably the Mahaweli Ganga Program, which was lent added
impetus and became the Accelerated Mahaweli Program in 1978. The
increasing size of the Mahaweli project dwarfed its earlier endeavors.
According to the plan, approximately 593,000 hectares of previously arid
land would be brought under irrigation by 1992. In 1986 some 76,000
hectares of new land were under cultivation as a result of this project.
Other long-standing government policies designed to help farmers
included subsidies for fertilizer, seed paddy, and other inputs.
Government efforts also partly contributed to the adoption of improved
cultivation practices and high-yielding seed varieties in paddy farming
in the 1960s.
Land Tenure
Modern land tenure policy dates from the Land Development Ordinance
of 1935, which forbade the transfer of crown lands for purposes of
cultivation except to enlarge the landholdings of near-landless or
landless peasants. The intent of this ordinance was to help small
farmers whose livelihood was seen to be at risk from the exploitation of
rich peasants and urban landowners.
In 1958 the Paddy Lands Bill was enacted, mainly to benefit the
tenant farmers of some 160,000 hectares of paddy land. The bill
purported to assist tenants to purchase the land they worked, to protect
them against eviction, and to establish a rent ceiling at around 25
percent of the crop. It also established cultivation committees,
composed of rice farmers, to assume general responsibility for rice
cultivation in their respective areas, including the direction and
control of minor irrigation projects. Shortcomings in the law and
official indifference in enforcing the act hampered its effectiveness,
and many observers termed it a failure. In some regions tenants who
tried to pay the lower, official rents were successfully evicted by
landlords, and the old rents, often about 50 percent of the produce,
remained in force. In the 1980s, however, the rent ceiling of 25 percent
was effective in most districts.
The Land Reform Law of 1972 imposed a ceiling of twenty hectares on
privately owned land and sought to distribute lands in excess of the
ceiling for the benefit of landless peasants. Because both land owned by
public companies and paddy lands under ten hectares in extent were
exempted from the ceiling, a considerable area that would otherwise have
been available for distribution did not come under the purview of the
legislation. Between 1972 and 1974, the Land Reform Commission took over
nearly 228,000 hectares, one-third of which was forest and most of the
rest planted with tea, rubber, or coconut. Few rice paddies were
affected because nearly 95 percent of them were below the ceiling limit.
Very little of the land acquired by the government was transferred to
individuals. Most was turned over to various government agencies or to
cooperative organizations, such as the Up-Country Co-operative Estates
Development Board.
The Land Reform Law of 1972 applied only to holdings of individuals.
It left untouched the plantations owned by joint-stock companies, many
of them British. In 1975 the Land Reform (Amendment) Law brought these
estates under state control. Over 169,000 hectares comprising 395
estates were taken over under this legislation. Most of this land was
planted with tea and rubber. As a result, about two-thirds of land
cultivated with tea was placed in the state sector. The respective
proportions for rubber and coconut were 32 and 10 percent. The
government paid some compensation to the owners of land taken over under
both the 1972 and 1975 laws. In early 1988, the state-owned plantations
were managed by one of two types of entities, the Janatha Estates
Development Board, or the Sri Lanka State Plantation Corporation.
Cropping Pattern
Rice cultivation has increased markedly since Independence, although
in the late 1980s yields remained well below those of the major
rice-producing countries. Much of the improvement came in the late 1970s
and 1980s. Rice remained a smallholder's crop, and production techniques
varied according to region. In some villages, it was still sown by hand,
with harvesting and threshing often engaging the entire family, plus all
available friends and relatives.
Because no completely perennial sources of water exist, there was
uncertainty regarding the adequacy of the supply each year. In the wet
zone, flooding and waterlogging was experienced in the 1980s, whereas in
the dry zone even the irrigated areas were subject to the possibility of
insufficient water. In the mid- and up-country wet zone areas, most
fields were sown twice a year in the 1980s; in the dry zone most
holdings were sown only once; and in the low-country wet zone the amount
of flooding or waterlogging determined whether to plant once or twice.
The maha (greater monsoon) crops are sown between August and October and
harvested five or six months later; the
yala (lesser monsoon)
crops sown between April and May and harvested about four or five months
later.
Despite some increases in productivity, rice output was disappointing
in the 1960s and early 1970s. Greater incentives to farmers after 1977
contributed to increases in production. Both the area under cultivation
and the yield increased steadily between 1980 and 1985, when annual
output reached 2.7 million tons, compared to an annual output of around
1.4 million tons in the early 1970s. In 1986 unfavorable weather and
security difficulties led to a slight decline in production. A severe
drought affected the crop in 1987, when output was estimated at only 2.1
million tons.
Tea is Sri Lanka's largest export crop. Only China and India produce
more tea. The plants, originally imported from Assam in India, are grown
in the wet zone at low, middle, and high altitudes, and produce a
high-grade black tea. The higher altitudes produce the best tea, and
terracing is used to eke out the limited area of upper altitude land.
Tea cultivation is meticulous and time consuming, requiring the constant
and skilled attention of two or three workers per hectare. Because of
this requirement, tea is most efficiently grown on estates, based on
large capital investment and having a highly organized and disciplined
management and labor supply.
Because working and living on estates was not attractive to Sinhalese
peasants, the labor supply for the tea industry from its inception was
provided by Indian Tamil immigrants who lived on the estates. Since
independence the number of Sinhalese workers has increased, but in the
late 1980s Tamils still dominated this sector.
The performance of the tea industry was disappointing in the 1970s
and early 1980s, because of poor producer prices and low productivity.
Tea production was 211 million kilograms in 1986, down from 220 million
kilograms in 1969. The fundamental problem of the tea estates was the
advanced age of the tea bushes. In 1987 their average age was around
sixty years and only 15 percent of the total area under tea had been
replanted with high-yielding varieties. Replanting had been neglected in
the 1960s and 1970s partly because low tea prices and high export duties
meant that profit margins were not high enough to make it a profitable
enterprise. Between 1972 and 1974, the growing risk of nationalization
also discouraged investment.
Rubber continues to be an important export crop in the late 1980s. It
thrives under plantation conditions in the wet zone, although a
significant proportion of the crop is produced by smallholders. Although
rubber yields improved greatly in the first twenty years after
independence, both the output and area planted with rubber declined in
the 1980s. Output fell from 156 million kilograms in 1978 to 125 million
kilograms in 1982. Improved prices caused production levels to recover
to about 138 million kilograms in 1986.
Despite the importance of rubber, a large number of rubber
plantations suffer from old age and neglect. The government offered
incentives to encourage replanting and improve maintenance procedures.
Nevertheless, the area replanted in 1986 was 12 percent less than in
1985. This drop in replanting resulted from a shortage of seeds and the
reluctance of farmers to retire land from production at a time of
relatively attractive prices. In early 1988, however, the short- and
medium-term outlook for world rubber prices was considered good.
Most of the coconut production was sold in the domestic market, which
consumed about 1.4 billion nuts in the mid-1980s. Most of the rest of
the crop, usually between 2 billion and 3 billion nuts, was exported as
copra, coconut oil, and desiccated coconut. Local uses for coconut
include timber for construction, leaves for thatch and siding, coir for
rope and rough textiles, and toddy and arrack for alcoholic beverages.
Coconut output fluctuates depending on weather conditions, fertilizer
application, and producer prices. In the 1980s, smallholders dominated
its production, which was concentrated in Colombo and Kurunegala
districts and around the city of Chilaw in Puttalam District. Because of
a drought in 1983, production suffered a setback during 1984 and fell to
1.9 billion nuts, its lowest level since 1977. The recovery during 1985
was impressive, leading to the record production of almost 3 billion
nuts. This level was itself surpassed in 1986, when production rose a
further 3 percent. But the average export price fell by 45 percent in
1985 and by 56 percent in 1986. In 1986 the farm gate price probably
fell below the cost of production, and in early 1988 it appeared that
fluctuations in the world price of coconut products would remain a
problem for the foreseeable future. The 1987 drought was expected to
reduce coconut production by at least 20 percent in both 1987 and 1988.
Like tea and rubber, the coconut sector suffered from inadequate
replanting. Consequently, a large proportion of the trees were old and
past optimum productivity levels.
The importance of crops other than tea, rubber, and coconut increased
after 1970, and in 1986 they accounted for around 51 percent of
agricultural output. There was a substantial increase in of minor food
crops, including soybeans, chilies, and onions, all of which are grown
as subsidiary crops on land irrigated by the Mahaweli project. In the
1960s and earlier, vegetables were imported from India in large
quantities, but in the 1980s the island's import requirements were much
smaller. Spices, including cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, and pepper, also
registered large gains in the 1970s and 1980s. A large proportion of the
spice output was being exported in the 1980s. Other crops of importance
included corn, millet, sweet potatoes, cassava, dry beans, sesame seed,
and tobacco. A wide variety of tropical fruits, including mangoes,
pineapples, plantains, and papayas, also were grown; most were consumed
in the domestic market. Sugar output increased in the early 1980s,
although in 1986 it still accounted for only 11 percent of the domestic
consumption. The expansion in sugar took place despite the problems of
the state-run sugar mills and their associated sugar lands in Eastern
Province, which have been disrupted by civil strife. Two new mills in
Western Province accounted for the increase in production, and in early
1988 the outlook for further expansion was good.
