Post-conflict Agricultural Modernization in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s former conflict-affected regions have traditionally been high-potential agricultural areas providing livelihood to a group of hard-working and resilient farmers. During the conflict, a large number of civilians were displaced, and agricultural livelihoods were disrupted affecting agricultural activity in the Northern Province (NP) and Eastern Province (EP) as well as the rest of the country. The cessation of the conflict therefore provided an opening to a large agricultural resource base for production. The government too was keen to revive the rural economy as a means of developing lagging regions, in particular the conflict-affected regions. It placed a high priority on agricultural modernization with a view to improve productivity and competitiveness, enhancing value addition, product diversification, and creating employment opportunities. These efforts delivered some beneficial impacts to rural farm incomes as well as food security. However, this chapter argues despite the post-conflict agricultural developments that the country experienced in general, and the NP and EP in particular, long-standing agricultural development issues remain unaddressed, affecting overall agricultural development in the country. Therefore, a long-term strategy to address these issues, including those of stagnating productivity, land use, inefficient water management, in adequate public spending on agriculture research and technology, climate change, and poor market integration—which collectively result in agrarian poverty and food insecurity in the country—needs to be adopted and implemented.