Call to build a resilient agri sector – Sunday Observer

Sunshine Holdings Group Managing Director Vish Govindasamy urged the Government to strengthen the backend structure of the local agriculture sector by identifying the key pain points of both public and private institutions and addressing them by actively engaging in discussions with relevant stakeholders of the industry.

Speaking as a panellist at the Sri Lanka Economic Summit Roadmap for Takeoff: Driving a People-Centric Economic Revival, organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) recently, Govindasamy said that fortifying this framework would prepare the agriculture sector to leverage numerous post-Covid opportunities, bring prosperity for all parties involved and make the sector resilient for any future disruption.

Covid-19 has brought several opportunities for the Agri sector, and we have ambitious plans on being self-sufficient in agriculture, dairy and fishery.

While we are preparing for that, we need to make sure that all backend processes and the framework which encompasses these processes have to be robust, he said.

Taking the dairy industry as an example, Govindasamy said, The country has a great vision for the local dairy industry intending to make Sri Lanka self-sufficient in milk by 2023. However, the backend framework has to be perfect before we even try to bring a herd.

Also, the animals need to have enough feed, which means that we have to clear land for farmers to grow. This needs to be done through a transparent land clearing process. Furthermore, the industry needs to deploy enough machinery and bring in modern technologies to meet this target. There are so many aspects to be looked at from a backend operations perspective to make front end operations of the dairy industry successful, said Govindasamy.

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Call to build a resilient agri sector - Sunday Observer