Colombo, Oct 6 (newsin.asia) – Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, on Friday launched the National Food Production Programme aimed at preventing a food shortage in the future.
With nearly 1.9 million people facing a severe drought in the island country and many agricultural lands destroyed due to floods earlier this year, Sirisena said the Food Programme was launched to encourage food cultivation in unused lands and revive the agricultural sector.
Many programmes will be launched across the country while Oct 6 to Oct 12 has been declared as the National Food Production week.
The government is expected to cultivate lands and take steps to encourage those who are cultivating. Legal action will be taken against those who do not cultivate on their unused lands as the initiative is considered as a humanitarian operation to eliminate poverty from the country.
The programme will also see many initiatives to promote home gardening, tree planting, prevention of food wastage, and promote toxins free food production.
More than 150,000 irrigation lands are expected to be used for this program in a proper manner.
Meanwhile Sirisena said immediate steps will be taken to stop importing unhealthy food items as well as non-essential food items into the country.
He said more than 25 billion Sri Lankan rupees was spent annually to import essential food items into Sri Lanka and it was essential that Sri Lanka produces its own food required for consumption.
He pointed out that self-sufficiency in food was the identity and the culture of Sri Lanka for the past thousands of years and it should be protected.
He also said it was important that the country gives value to local products, if it is to help the agriculture economy as well as the national economy.
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