Crop Diversification in the Asia-Pacific region - United Nations in ...

techniques such as tissue culture can be used more effectively for the expansion of new cropvarieties.With the open market system, the involvement of government in planning is limitedand furthermore, the decisions are now being made by agricultural entrepreneurs. Hence,before entering into any agricultural enterprise, farmers are required to decide on the crops,type of technology etc., and they also need to forecast and anticipate the fluctuations inprices, marketability of the produce, extent of cultivation and the expected total production toavoid future gluts and major price slumps. Similarly, information on the land, soil type, cropsuitability etc., should also be useful for the future agriculture entrepreneur. There is a needto have an institution to provide such information to support the decision making of theagriculture producer as well as the traders. In this system both farmer and traders should beable to collect information conveniently.5.3 Institutional and Infra-structural Development Towards Crop Diversification5.3.1 Institutional DevelopmentFarmer organizations at different levels of the irrigation schemes are required foreffective crop diversification programmes. Such organizations facilitate effective irrigationmanagement, supply of inputs and organizing marketing facilities. This requirement iseffectively met in almost all irrigation schemes in the island and the Irrigation ManagementDivision attached to the Irrigation Department is responsible for the activity.There is a fairly effective agriculture extension network present in the country. It ispresently handled by the Department of Agriculture at both provincial and inter-provinciallevel and by the Mahaweli Economic Agency in the major irrigation schemes. In addition,there are several non-governmental organizations that take certain extension messages to alimited section of the farmers. However, the extension service suffers from lack of sufficientstaff at village level to take the extension messages across to the farming community.Therefore, an increase in strength of extension agents at village level is needed to improvethe efficiency of the extension service.The Department of Agrarian Services mainly handles the minor irrigation schemesand is also responsible for supplying inputs and purchasing certain farm produce to a limitedextent.5.3.2 Infra-structural DevelopmentModern irrigation schemes designed after the 1960’s were completed with thefollowing basic facilities:- Canal system with high canal capacity.- Gates and regulators for efficient irrigation control.- Access roads to each and every allotment.However, the experiences in the last decade show that food and fruit processingfactories at regional level are necessary to deal with the problem of seasonal excessproduction of crops to ensure good market prices for agriculture produce, thus facilitating thediversification process.126