A Novel Approach towards Sustainable Agriculture

Agriculture sector can play a key role in Sri Lanka’s achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the target year 2030. Sustainable agriculture could lead to many positive development outcomes. These include, among others, achieving food security, minimizing nutrient deficiencies, a healthy community, controlling wastage, new economic opportunities and alleviation of poverty, broadening opportunities for sustainable consumption and production, minimizing climatic change through soil protection, water security and bio-diversity conservation.

Given the significance of the agriculture sector in achieving SDGs, a mainstreaming and data capacity-building workshop was conducted for the Ministry of Agriculture, State Ministries and the institutions coming within the purview of the Ministry of Agriculture by the Sustainable Development Council of Sri Lanka (SDCSL) on Tuesday, 02nd February. The Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Major General (Rtd). Sumedha Perera, secretaries to State Ministries, senior officials from the relevant ministries and heads of institutions coming within the purview of the ministries including the Department of Agriculture, National Livestock Development Board, Department of Animal production and Health etc. participated at the workshop.

In line with the national policy commitments contained in ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’ relating to strengthening a people-centered economy and revitalizing agriculture and livestock sectors, the discussions focused on the preparation of SDG mainstreamed institutional Action Plans and the formulation of a Road-map for strengthening statistical capacities of institutions to compile SDG related data to track progress on SDG achievements.

As the mandated agency to coordinate and facilitate Sri Lanka’s achievements on SDGs, the workshop was conducted by the officials of SDCSL, Chamindry Saparamadu (Director-General), Nadeeka Amarasinghe (Assistant Director)  and Sheron Hewawaduge (Assistant Director) with the technical support of the Department of Census and Statistics, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).