An overview of Land Issues in Sri Lanka

Perspective adopted in looking at land issues

 

Land ownership and land use patterns in a country have depended on the interests of different rulers at different times. Land laws and regulations have been determined accordingly. If one traces the history of land ownership and land use in Sri Lanka this becomes clear.

 

When we try to identify land issues in Sri Lanka at present and to see how land issues have to be dealt with in the future, what is most important is to decide from whose perspective we look at land.

 

This overview is based on the premise that land is primarily for survival of life of humans and all other living beings. Also it is not only for the present generation but also for future generations.  Therefore, an important requirement is to ensure that regenerative ability of nature is protected. Since much of this ability of nature and resources of nature have already been destroyed, recovery of this capacity has become an important aspect of how we should use land. Priority is given to those whose immediate survival depends on access to land and the way land is used. Land includes the sea, waters and other natural resources.

 

 In society there are classes or categories of people with conflicting interests. Therefore a particular pattern of land ownership and land use that is beneficial for the interest of a particular class or group of people may be against the interests of another group. Therefore an analysis of the diverse land ownership and land use patterns as well as policies, laws and regulations adopted in relation to land becomes complete, only when they are understood in the context of the interests of the class or group that decides such policies, laws and regulations. The analysis should also include the impact of such decisions on various classes or categories of people. These categories could be class, ethnicity, caste and culture etc.

 

A brief history of land ownership and land use

 

A very brief look at the history of various land ownership and use patterns that have existed in Sri Lanka would be useful to understand the importance of this approach to analyzing land issues.

 

Prior to British rule all land belonged to the king. There were feudal lords and families who had the right to decide about land allocations in the areas where they were given powers by the king. People had a certain degree of freedom to occupy, settle down and cultivate land. The degree of freedom that was allowed by the rulers. They had to perform certain services and pay tribute to the lords in return. In this sense land use patterns were not entirely designed by the rulers. Giving some consideration to the livelihood needs of the people was seen as a responsibility of the ruler.

The history of ancient irrigation systems where Sri Lanka can has made great achievements bear witness to this approach  

 

 The British who followed companies that were involved in trade, such as the East India Company, had other purposes for which land was to be used. Creation of private ownership of land was a means of acquiring land that was needed by the white planters to grow cash crops such as coffee, tea, coconut and rubber. Compared to the earlier rulers, the kings, the British had a greater need to extract profit from land and labour.

 

The concept of private ownership of land gradually became applied to the whole of society. The impact of the concept of private ownership of land and its application over nearly two centuries has been severe. The concept of commons, patterns of collective use of land, collaboration in productive activities and sharing of labour have gradually weakened over this period.  It has created social and economic disparities of massive scale. This could be understood by looking at the fact that most of the rural population is now compelled to find their livelihoods depended either on very small plots of land, with many who are landless or are unauthorized, illegal settlers on state owned land. Such unauthorized settlers are not entitled to rights and supportive mechanisms provided by the State  Acquisition of large land holdings by private owners expanded beyond the hill country plantation areas when rubber plantations and coconut plantations, privately owned, expanded creating problems of landlessness among the ordinary rural people. Other factors have led to migration of populations creating relative land shortages in some areas while land remained under utilized in other areas.  Thinner population in the dry zone areas and more densed population in the wet zone has been a result of these migrations.

 

When such large privately owned farms expanded in some other countries the rural small farmers (family farmers) had to leave their rural lives and they were needed in the cities as free labour to be hired in factories that emerged as a result of rapid industrial expansion, during the industrial revolution. The massive exodus of rural people to urban industrial areas took place through what is described as the “enclosure movement” in Europe. However, this expansion of industries, the industrial revolution, did not take place in Sri Lanka and in many other Third World countries that were under colonial rule, which resulted in large rural poverty. In these countries the rural small scale farmer population remained very high and they were poor.

 

In the recent times faster rural to urban population has been a phenomenon, not particularly because urban life has been more comfortable but because livelihood opportunities, employment and other facilities have been reduced in rural areas. Thus, much of the urbanization has accompanied the growth of slums and shanties.

 

Policies for protection of small farmers and their access to Land

 

In the post independence Sri Lanka, the early governments adopted a policy that aimed at keeping this rural poverty low, by policies that supported small scale agriculture by rural farmers. In fact such an approach was started in Sri Lanka already during the British rule. Severe food shortages that emerged during the time of the World War II  made the British government to recognize the importance of promoting domestic food production. Agricultural settlements with improved irrigation facilities were initiated in 1930s. Land Development Ordinance (LDO) enacted in 1935 or 1935, was a means of giving land to landless people , particularly from areas where land shortages were becoming a problem.

 

 Measures were adopted to prevent them from losing land again by introducing restrictions against selling such land, received as grants from the government, outside the family. The policy that was adopted was that land given to a particular class of people should remain within that class.  Such land grants made early after the Land Development Ordinance is known as LDO land. This policy of land and irrigation development and settlement of people who were considered landless in irrigated agricultural settlements, was one of the major policies of all governments after Independence too, until the large irrigated agriculture development scheme  in 1970s which was called the Accelerated Mahaweli Development Project,  which covered a major part of the dry zone agricultural area in Sri Lanka. This policy included not only land grants to landless. The settler farmers and other small scale rural farmers were given a package of supportive services and subsidies. This package of supportive policies subsequently expanded to include free irrigation development, settlers were given assistance to build their houses. Later agricultural extension services provided by the Government expanded, particularly after the introduction of high yielding varieties of paddy in mid 1960s.

 

When the use of external inputs such as improved seed paddy, fertilizers, pesticides and better irrigation which were also provided by the Government under the Agrarian Services Dept at affordable cost,  agricultural credit to small farmers became necessary. Agricultural credit scheme initiated by the Government was, in a way, a subsidy since it included refinancing facility by the Central Bank to cover unrecovered loans. 75% of the agricultural loans given to small scale paddy farmers were covered by this refinancing facility. Paddy marketing Board was another mechanism of offering a guaranteed price to the paddy farmers, while providing consumers, rice at subsidized, affordable prices. All these measures were to protect the domestic food production, particularly rice production by small farmers.

 

Political pressure on the Governments to adopt farmer supportive measures

 

An important factor that contributed to these policies of protecting small scale rural agricultural livelihoods adopted by the then governments was the presence of the Left Movement and the fact that Sri Lanka had introduced universal adult franchise as early as in 1931. Those who represented the people had to get elected and the left political parties educated people about their rights and organized them in struggle for their rights.  Land shortages that existed in the wet zone areas in the Western and Southern Provinces and in areas such as Sabaragamuwa, where plantations had created land scarcities; there was a tendency of the Left Movement becoming strong. The people without land began to align themselves with the workers movement organized by the Left.

It is said that D.S. Senanayake launched the colonization schemes, where people with less or no land were given irrigated land in the dry zone, as settler farmers, as a strategy of keeping them away from joining the workers and moving towards socialist politics.  This programme also coincided with another strong objective of the early post independence governments, which was to “make the country self sufficient in rice”.

 

 The campaign for social welfare which was strong in Sri Lanka from 1930s resulted in another set of policies. Rice, the staple food of all people had to be given cheap at prices affordable to the poorest people. In fact this policy and concern for social welfare applied not only to food, but also to other essential services. This resulted in the policies of free education, free health services, price controls and government interventions in marketing to protect small scale domestic producers and poorer consumers.  Keeping low disparities in land ownership was very much a part of this policy. These governments, while protecting the smaller farmers and poorer consumers to a degree, had a simultaneous / parallel policy of protecting and supporting the richer tea, rubber and coconut plantation owners while keeping the larger group of poor voters pacified.

 

Measures that led to less land ownership disparities in rural areas in Sri Lanka

Another parallel policy adopted by Sri Lankan Governments until 1980 contributed toward keeping land ownership disparities low in the rural agricultural sector.  People in rural areas, particularly the areas that are described as Non Plantation Sector continued in the practice of moving into government land when they became landless and occupying such land as unauthorized settlers or illegal settlers. In the early post colonial period the policy adopted by Governments was to look into such occupied land from time to time and when it was found that people have developed such land and had formed them into villages, the government regularized such land and gave them ownership. There was a special department responsible to do this and this was called Land Regularization Department. The process adopted in deciding whether the land allocations were made to deserving people was to conduct what were called “Land Kachcheries” by the Government agent and other officials. People could give evidence and make their submissions to these public hearings and also make complains when there were unfair decisions.

 

However, these were policies and decisions taken by the then rulers. Under these arrangements there was a considerable extent of land that had been distributed by the governments from time to time to relatively poor landless people. In most of these, there were legal restrictions.

When the left movement was stronger than it is now and was seen as moving in a direction of socialism, the right wing political parties thought that allowing people to have some land, privately owned was a way of keeping them away from such socialist politics. Thus small holder farmers were seen as “guardians of democracy” in the country.

 

Youth Uprisings and Land Reforms

The expansion of education into rural areas among the poorer sections of society since introduction of the free education system in 1944 and the adoption of Sinhala as official language resulted in large numbers of young people wanting to go through education as a way of improving social mobility looking for opportunities outside the rural agricultural sector. This also was a big trend among the youth in the Tamil speaking areas of the North and East. Strengthening of aspirations for such social mobility also came in with the political reforms since 1956, introduced by the S.W.R.D. Bandaranayake. This period was described as the “common man’s age”.   Youth Uprising by the JVP was largely a result of the youth who wanted to find such opportunities being frustrated and wanting to create a just social system that provided such opportunities to the poor and deprived people. Land Reforms that were introduced in 1972 and in 1975 were seen as measures for improving the land ownership patterns for more equitable distribution and ownership. Land ceilings were laid down and the state acquired extra land that was in private hands.

 

Similarly, after the second uprising of youth in the southern parts of Sri Lanka, in late 1980s,  a Presidential Task Force for Land Distribution and Utilization was appointed.  Although in both these instances more equitable distribution and more effective use of land were seen as remedies to the problems of youth dissatisfaction and rebellion, the measures adopted did not lead to such improvement and utilization. Thus, they failed to reduce the problems of rural poverty and create new opportunities. What is important to note is the recognized importance of land distribution and better use of land as a necessity in dealing with the most serious social and political crises in the country.

 

However, this policy of giving land to landless people applied only to people outside the plantation sector. 

 

Discrimination against plantation workers

 

However, the population that was brought from India to build the plantations during the British rule was treated very differently. They were brought from among poor,hungry, people in some parts of South India, since cheap subservient labour was needed. Thus their salaries were low and they were restricted from having land of their own and were even restricted from linking up with other sectors of the economy and also from linking up or integrating themselves with the rest of society. Plantation owners had almost complete control over their lives. For over one and a half centuries they were kept in a state of “semi slavery” to be used exclusively as “cheap labour”. This system developed by the British to meet the requirements of the plantations was maintained by the rulers even after Independence. In fact it was even made worse when the government after 1947 decided to take away citizenship rights from these plantation workers and were categorized as “Indian Plantation Tamils” or “Tamils with Indian Origin” The reason is well known. Plantation workers were organized into Trade Unions and in these early elections there were indications that they were voting with the left political parties. Had they been considered citizens with voting rights there was a possibility of the left getting considerable support from these plantation labour.

 

Thus it can be said that Independence obtained in 1948 was for the rest of the country except the plantation population. One does not need to go into details to show how these workers were “enslaved” as plantation labour since it is well known that they were not given opportunities for any form of social mobility .with restricted education, health and housing depended entirely on what the planters were willing to give. Even today there are about a million plantation workers who do not have any of these basic human rights, though they  are legal citizens.

 

Therefore, the rights of plantation workers to land and other related rights, if they are to be considered proper citizens of the country is an issue that needs great and urgent attention.

 

However, the right to land for plantation workers is not yet recognized as an important right. Recently there has been a scheme of giving small plots of land ( some 7 perch plots of land per family for housing ) however, this land on which houses are to be  built will be given to them after deducting the cost of the house and of the land from the salaries or the EPF payments and this would take many years. Land to plantation people for their own agriculture is not yet a proposal under consideration.

 

The plantation owners and the Governments .look at these people, only as a source of  cheap labour. Even most of the Plantation trade Unions that fight for the rights of these workers look at them as labour and not as free citizens who have a right to decide and plan for improvement of their status as equal citizens. Such rights as citizens should entitle them to own land have the possibility of using land for agriculture and income; have access to good housing, education, health and the possibilities of social mobility.

 

These rights would be denied them as long as they are kept restricted to status of plantation labour. Labour wages and working conditions will remain low and poor since the plantation owners and Government will decide on these from the point of view of profits to plantation owners and as a source of earning foreign income, although plantation agriculture is gradually reducing its profitability.

 

 

Briefly, on land and the ethnic issue

 

As we already know very well one of the biggest and most important factors that resulted in the present protracted war in the North – East is the issue of land. Although this is one of the most important and still unsolved land issues in the country, this article does not intend to go into a detailed analysis of this issue and its history. Very briefly, the conflict that arose between the political leaderships of the Sinhala and Tamil communities in sharing of power, escalated into a conflict on control over geographical territories. Concept of traditional home lands of the Tamil people and the issue of right to self determination emerged as a result of this conflict. This unsolved problem remains one of the most crucial land issues in the country. The right of the Muslim people to such rights has  now emerged as an important aspect of this problem.

 

In dealing with this issue, it is important not only to decide  on the issue of devolution of power among ethnic communities. The issues of who controls land, how land ownership is to be decided within these territories and for what purpose this land is to be utilized are also important. This is important because even if the issue of devolution of power between ethnic communities is solved there will remain the issue of land ownership and control within each of these territories. This aspect of the land problem namely, whether land should go into the hands of the rich, large scale owners to be used for high value export crops or whether foreign investment and big businesses should be invited to produce high value expert crops or whether small scale farming by small holders with preference given to production of domestic food will still remain. Thus, the issue of devolution of power to regions on the basis of ethnicity should be combined with the other issue of land distribution among small scale farmers as against larger land holdings for commercial farming and export orientation are common to all parts of the country irrespective of ethnicity. 

 

Importance of Land use and agriculture technology in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a country with relatively low land availability compared to its population. Per capita land availability is very low. Much of the rural population still live on agriculture.

Since there is little industrialization and there is relatively less opportunities for meaningful livelihoods in urban areas, the way land should be utilized is very important. Sustaining high overall productivity of land without depleting land fertility is of great importance.

 

The World Bank that has been very strongly pushing for shifting away from low value domestic food production to high value export crop production during the last three decades has reversed its position in their recently published World Development Report 2008, titled “Agriculture for Development”. They now say for countries like Sri Lanka that cannot depend on food imports that are undergoing a process of price increases globally  it is very necessary to give high priority for domestic food production.

 

Government of Sri Lanka has again decided that there is a crying need to strengthen domestic food production. This is expressed in the new programme launched by the Ministry of Agriculture “ Let’s grow and Build the nation” ( Api Wawamu, Rata Nagamu) on September 3, 2008. It envisages the establishment of 4 million home gardens island wide. This says that all households in rural as well as in urban areas have to have their own home garden designed to give them their domestic food requirements to the maximum possible. Government says that the present expenditure on food imports that reached Rs. 100,000 million in 2006 is unaffordable to  the country’s economy, therefore minimizing imported food is a must. Further it says that due to very high cost of imported fertilizer, which is Rs 3,600 a bag of 50 Kgs which is presently given to paddy farmers at a subsidized rate of Rs. 350 / bag, the government incurs a loss of Rs. 36 billion annually, which is beyond the country’s economic capability. Thus, shifting away from use of chemical fertilizer is strongly advocated.

 

These factors combined says that we have to think of approaches in land use that makes it possible for the small holders to remain the main food producers in the country and they have to adopt methods that do not require expensive external inputs. Going a step further it is obvious to recognize that what we need are ways of utilizing land in a way that can give food in a sustainable manner by small holders.

 

A question that is debated in Sri Lanka and now increasingly in the world, is whether “sustainable agriculture” (ecological agriculture) by small scale farmers can sufficiently meet the needs of today? Can they feed the world? 

 

This is an extremely important issue that needs to be discussed in any study of land and agriculture in Sri Lanka and globally. This debate is acquiring increasing importance globally due to the recently recognized problems such as increasing food prices, expansion of bio fuels, problem of large agricultural subsidies in the West, obstructing agricultural potential in the developing countries, issues of global warming and climate change caused by destructive use of land and agriculture.

Changes in Land ownership and land use policies, under the neo liberal, market led, economic policies during the last 30 years

 

From the above perspective it is possible for us to look at the consequences of the changes that have taken place in the land use and land ownership policies during the last 30 years ( since 1977 ), when Sri Lanka embarked on an economic policy that was drastically different from the policies adopted by all governments as described earlier.  

 

Since 1977, with the intension of increasing exports by attracting foreign investment into the country and of encouraging private sector, there were a number of measures adopted in relation to land. For attracting foreign investment for expert crops and export oriented agro based industries,  there was policy of inviting foreign direct investment. Around 1981, three districts were declared as “Agricultural Promotion Zones”( APZs ), Mannar, Vavuniya and  Monaragala. In these districts tax holidays and other concessions were offered to potential investors, similar to those offered to investors in the Free Trade Zones. Accelerated Mahaweli Development Scheme also had intensions of offering developed, irrigated land to such investors with the expectation that  there would be  a rapid growth of export crops such as gherkin, melon and baby corn etc. Large extents of land were offered to big foreign companies to initiate sugar cane plantations and export oriented cashew plantations in areas such as Thanthirimale in Anuradhapura district.. There were efforts to promote such large pine apple plantations in areas such as Bibile. In some areas such as Ambilipitiya large banana plantations were encouraged. Mahaweli authority was willing to allocate large extents of land to big companies for such export oriented agriculture and agro based industries.

 

Another important change of policies was the relaxation of the Land ceilings introduced by the land reforms of 1972 and 1975. Individual or family ownership of land was allowed to extend beyond the ceiling of 50 acres. Privatisation of plantations, reversing the state control over plantations was another measure introduced. Re – privatization of the plantation industry had many detrimental effects on the plantation workers rights. This was said to be necessary to make the plantation industry more efficient and profitable. Initially it was  only short term management contracts given to private plantation companies. But later these periods of private sector management were extended to longer periods.

 

In order to make such land available to private foreign investment outside the plantation sector, one of the measures adopted by the Government was to take very strong legal measures to prevent “encroachment” or unauthorized occupation of government owned land. This was a big change in the earlier policy of   regularization of ‘encroached’ land of unauthorized settlers.

 

It is important to note that the policy of inviting big foreign investment to land for export oriented agriculture have been resisted by the people very strongly and consistently. One of the well known land struggles by farmers in the recent times was the four year old resistance against the Sugar Companies to be invited to Monaragala. Only one company succeeded in establishing itself, the Pelwatte Sugar Company, and two other companies that had planned to come to Monaragala and Nakkala for sugar cane withdrew due to such resistance. The companies that came for other crops such as Gherkins too have now left the country since farmers were not willing to continue such farming.

 

Land ownership policies advocated by the World Bank

WB, has been consistently pushing for a process of market led land reform in Sri Lanka. In a policy recommendation Report presented by the WB to government, titled “Non Plantation Sector Policy Alternatives” ( June 1996 ) It was said that the reason for lack of growth in the non plantation sector agriculture was that small holders who control much of the rural agricultural land were only growing ‘low value crops’ which was not useful for growth in this sector of agriculture. Paddy and other domestic food crops grown by small farmers were of low value (in the international market ). These farmers were not willing to shift out of such crops such as paddy although there had been consistent efforts for more than 50 years ( before 1996 ) to encourage this shift. Therefore, the solution proposed was for the Government to intervene and create a “free land  market”. It said that there was much land with rural people which were not legally marketable. These were mainly the land grants made under the Land Development Ordinance ( LDO) in the colonization schemes where selling of land outside the family was restricted. There was also much land that was owned jointly by the family which we not tradable by individual members. The total extent of such land was calculated to be 1.2 million acres. The proposal of the WB in the above policy recommendation was to give legal ownership with “land titles” and to regularize ownership of individual family members so that land market in the country becomes totally free and open.

 

The intension of these proposed recommendation was to encourage small holder rural farmers to sell their ineffective small plots and to move out of agriculture . This in their view would make it possible to have greater consolidation and concentration of land in the hands of better, bigger  and more capable investors who could use such land to bring about the proposed transformation from low value crops to high value crops. Another  intension of these proposals  were to encourage rural small scale farmers to look for “non farm” activities rather than depending on small scale agriculture which did not bring them sufficient incomes to run their families.

 

This intension became clearer in the “Regaining Sri Lanka economic development Strategy” formulated by the then government, which was obviously done in close consultation with the WB. Regaining Sri Lanka was the Sri Lankan version of the PRSP that the WB wanted formulated by all poor countries as their Poverty Reduction Strategies. WB had its own PRSP advisors who assisted the Governments to formulate such strategies.

 

“Regaining Sri Lanka” ( PRSP) strategy document clearly says that it estimates that there would be a large migration of people from rural areas to urban areas. By, 2010, it was expected that this massive migration would change the population ratio between rural and urban by which the urban population would change from the present 30 % to 50%, while rural population was estimated to come down from present 70 % to 50 %.

There was the hidden intension   in this proposal that it would increase the availability of cheap labour in the country which was expected to make it more attractive to the industrial and service sector investors.

 

There is an on going attempt to create this free land market in the country. WB experts have been continuously invited and engaged in designing this project which was called the “Land Titling Project”. One of the WB experts who worked on this in Sri Lanka for many years was Ms. Jessica Mott.  Although this proposal of creating a free land market has not yet been achieved fully, all governments since then have been making a consistent effort to introduce this reform in the land ownership pattern. Programmes of granting land titles have been carried out by various governments under different names. They were the “Swarnabhumi”, “Jayabhumi”, “Ratnabhumi” and now it has acquired a new name “ Bim Saviya”

 

World Bank commissioned a research into the possible implications of such a land titling project on poverty and its social repercussions. The researcher commissioned for this purpose was Ms. Barbara Verado, who carried out discussions and investigations into the possible implications and also the possible responses or reactions / resistance that may arise against such a change. Her study outlines the diverse views on this proposals, those in favor and those against it.

 

 Real ownership of land to the farmers ( the tiller ) ? 

“Ownership of land to the tiller” has been the demand of all progressive movements of farmers.

There is also a lot of evidence where granting of land ownership to small farmers and land redistribution from large land owners to smaller farmers have resulted in much progress in productivity. There are many capitalist economies that have very effectively adopted such land reforms. In countries such as Japan, Thailand, and other East Asian countries that carried out such effective capitalist land reforms there has been effective growth in the agricultural sector and in the economy. Real ownership of land encourages the“owner farmers” to develop land and increase productivity. It also allows them to use land as co-lateral in finding capital for other investments and in emergencies. Therefore, granting real ownership to the farmer is seen as useful and necessary.  These are very valid arguments.

 

How transfer of ownership of land to farmers should be done in Sri Lanka ?

 

 However, granting such ownership should accompany measures that would enable such farmers to possess land sustainably as a means of  livelihoods for meeting food security and “food sovereignty”. It should not be done with plans and intensions of compelling them to get rid of their land through desperation, so that land gets quickly transferred to others seen as more effective operators. It is clear that WB’s proposals for Market led Land Reform proposed for many countries has this clear intension

 

It is therefore essential to ensure that granting of real ownership of land to the farmer ( the tiller ) accompanies well worked out strategies and policies that would enable the beneficiaries to make their land economically profitable and productive so that they would be able to retain ownership of land. 

 

As stated earlier the World Bank carried out several researches related to the proposal for “Land Titling”. One such study done was in collaboration with the University of Colombo. This study revealed that a very large percentage of people who had private ownership of land with regular titles as well as those who possessed land that was granted by the State ( without regular titles, therefore with no legal authority to sell land ) were unwilling to sell their land anyway ( the percentages were as high as 96% and 94 % respectively.). Therefore, it was clear that the estimated migrations to urban areas would be not because they thought that they would have better lives in the cities, but they would be compelled by poverty and indebtedness to sell their land unwillingly.

 

Increasing land transfers in irrigated agricultural settlements

 

In spite of legal restrictions against selling of land granted to settler farmers, there has been such land transfers by farmers due to debt and other factors that made such small scale paddy farming more and more difficult for small holders. It is reported that such unofficial land transfers in Mahaweli settlements and in other settlements has been rapidly increasing in the recent years. In Mahaweli ‘H’ area many of these land plots are now in the possession of richer people, some of whom are said to have control over 50 – 100 plots.  This needs to be investigated more closely since this means that the original intension of sustaining small holder agriculture is failing.

 

Landlessness among the subsequent generations of the settler farmers

 

This is a problem that has not been looked into from the beginning of such settlement schemes. Land plots given are 2 ½ acres of paddy and ½ acre of highland for the house and home stead. The land given gets transferred to the eldest son of the family. This creates problems to the parents since they have to look into the needs of other children too. In some cases where the first settlements were done in 1960s, 1970s and so on, there are more than one generation among whom this land needs to be divided. Thus fragmentation of land is a serious issue. However, getting these people to sell their land so that more consolidation of land plots make them more economically viable units is no solution unless better alternatives are available to those who get displaced and become landless destitute with no other livelihoods.

 

Other important issues related to land use

 

Soil erosion and loss of soil fertility, depletion of forest cover, frequent floods, earth slips and droughts and conversion land more and more into uses other than agriculture and food production, are major problems that need to be attended to in the country as a whole.

 

In the case of Sri Lanka most of these problems can be effectively dealt with by utilizing the capacity of small scale farmers to adopt “ecological agriculture” A farmer working on a small plot of land can better understand and attend to the specific conditions of the land on which he / she works. Ecological / regenerative agriculture adopts methods of diversification of crops, restoring the maximum use of sunlight and maximizing the natural improvement of soil fertility, prevention of erosion, reducing and even complete elimination of the use of harmful agrochemicals and chemical fertilizer is possible and even more economically viable in the case of small scale farming. Diversification reduces damage by spreading of crop diseases.  Thus ecological agriculture application should be seriously considered in all areas, in all agro- ecological zones, in the plantation areas, in the hill country and even in the coastal regions.

 

Way of dealing with the issue of land plots being too small

Smallness of land plots is a problem that arose as a result of the promotion of private ownership of land, which led to fragmentation of land plots.. However, nature’s contribution to agriculture can be maximized only when agriculture deals with the ecological system of a particular area.  If we do not agree with the proposal of driving large numbers of small farmers to consolidate land into larger operating units, it is necessary to think of an approach where small farmers look at their agricultural land as comprising of larger productive systems.  This can be done by developing a “cluster approach”. A group of farmers in a particular area could design their farming on individual units in a manner that these units together become a cluster of plots designed to meet the requirements of a a balanced agro ecological system.

 

March, 2008