Plant bio technology and agriculture in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka is still an agricultural country. Some important food crops cultivated are rice (slaplc food), fruits (banana, papaya, citrus etc.), vegetables and cash crops such as chilli. As identi lied even through local media, the agricultural sector in Sri Lanka is undergoing a decline in productivity. Agriculture is also threatened by recent unfavourable climatic changes. The production cost is also increasing continuously. One other key factor for agricultural production to decline is the unwillingness of people to get into agriculture. This is mainly due to low social status given to the farmer (the agricultural producer). Because of this, the situation at present is that aperson would get into agriculture mostly when nothing else is possible.