A brainstorming Workshop organized by Department of Agriculture focusing on the “Paddy sector in Sri Lanka” was held at auditorium of NAICC on 20.02.2023 with the participation of Director General of Agriculture Miss. P. Malathi, former Director Generals of Agriculture, University Academia, Eminent Scientists and Senior officials of Department of Agriculture and other Agriculture related Departments and Institutes.

Welcome speech was given by the Additional Director General (Development) and the opening remarks were delivered by the Director General of Agriculture.

In this workshop, four presentations were delivered on the current situation, problems and paddy sector development activities by Dr.Chamila Chandrasiri (Socio Economic & Planning Center), Dr.Jayantha Senanayake – Director (RRDI), Mr.Jagath Sudasinghe – Director (ETC), Mr.Satheeswaran – Director (SPMDC).

Honorable Minister of Agriculture Mr. Mahinda Amaraweera also participated to the evening session of the workshop.

In the Paddy sector of Sri Lanka we are currently experiencing a significant yield gap in farmer fields as well as considerable issues in marketing. A situation analysis in the paddy sector is timely required in order to identify the existing challenges and to formulate strategies for the sector improvement thereby ensuring food security. Therefore, the main objective of this workshop was to formulate 3/5/10 years Sector Plan for paddy sector in Sri Lanka. Also, settling the production target for next five-year period for each sectors, development of short term and medium term policy guide line for national paddy production, development of short term and medium term programs for paddy sector and identification of an action plan for short term and medium term were the other objectives of this event.