The Sri Lankan government must support the agriculture sector with more freely available technology, World Bank Senior Regulatory Specialist, Rajendra Singh said .
Speaking at an event in Colombo organized by LIRNEasia, yesterday in Colombo he said that the World Bank too will support an initiative of this nature.
He said that big companies have access to modern technology through information technology (ICT) and de to this they are not only obtaining high yields and also have better access to markets where the demand is.
“Due to regular profits these ‘big’ companies involved in agriculture could afford to make mistakes and lose part of their crop. However in contrast the small farmer cannot afford losses since they reinvest next year from the profits generated from the produce.” Today a smaller farmer does not have ability to take even a health card of a soil sample (soil test) and this should be corrected through the deployment of ICT.
He also said that in Sri Lanka the GDP contribution from the ICT industry is small and this is an area that the government should focus on. LIRNEasia,Chairman Dr.Rohan Samarajeeva said mobile technology is helping many sectors including fishing and sadly it’s not used in Sri Lanka. “Fishermen in some countries use this technology to identify areas where there is large fish catchment and also coordinate to which harbour they should land to get the best price for their catch.”(SS)
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