Paddy programme targets ten tonnes per hectare across 11 cultivation tracts

Sri Lanka’s Yaya paddy cultivation programme is targeting yields of at least ten tonnes per hectare across 11 selected cultivation tracts through private-sector participation, Senior Professor of the Department of Crop Science at the University of Peradeniya’s Faculty of Agriculture Buddhi Marambe said.

The target is more than twice the national average of about 4.5 tonnes per hectare, he said, with universities expected to help independently monitor the use of new technologies and their effects on yields.

He said the Department of Agriculture had invited private companies to participate under a specified procedure.

The companies would introduce their technologies alongside the Department’s basic cultivation recommendations, with the aim of achieving higher yields across entire paddy tracts.

“There are already individual farmers who obtain ten or eleven tonnes,” he said.

The challenge was to achieve comparable yields across a tract of around 50 acres, with farmers working as a group. A tract generally involved between 20 and 30 farmers, he said.

The initiative draws on the Department’s Yaya 500 programme, which covered 500 paddy tracts as demonstration areas during the previous Yala season and the preceding Maha season. The 11 tracts selected for private-sector participation would build on that experience.

Marambe said he had examined data from the programme, including with private-sector representatives. Trials involving new fertiliser recommendations, changes to crop nutrition and other cultivation measures had produced yields exceeding seven tonnes per hectare.

Raising those yields to ten tonnes or more would help the country meet its production targets and strengthen food security, he said.

The Yaya programme was first introduced by senior Department of Agriculture officers in the 1990s. The latest approach included university participation, with Peradeniya’s Faculty of Agriculture expected to become involved shortly. Its representatives had already attended several planning discussions, he said.

Students from agriculture faculties would be involved in independently observing and monitoring activities across the 11 tracts. They would examine how inputs were used, how private companies’ technologies were incorporated into cultivation, and how those changes affected yields.

“They will also prepare reports on their observations,” Marambe said.

Participation would be arranged around students’ academic commitments. Final-year students in their seventh semester could take part before beginning dissertation research in the eighth semester. Depending on university calendars, students nearing the end of their third year could also be considered.

Marambe said arrangements would need to be discussed with the relevant deans. The work was expected to involve agriculture faculties across the state university system, with Peradeniya contributing as part of the wider effort.

He said higher yields had to translate into better returns for farmers. Fertiliser and other inputs should be used efficiently, while improved crop management could increase production and help justify farmers’ investment.

The emphasis should be on applying the quantities crops required and obtaining better results from them, he said.

“Farmers’ incomes matter, but so do their profits. Profit is what enables them to move forward. They are, after all, running a form of business.”